It's hard to believe that Cut & Coil is only the third album from the transcontinental Cylab (though fourth release if you factor in the remix album Disseminate). Each release from this band shows more and more solidification of sound and style and no doubt this brand new album is their most mature work to date. Cylab, first conceived in 1999 by New York City's Percy Trayanov, began to grow to with the addition of vocals by one of my favorite vocalists Severina Sol, who of course you know as a former member of Diva Destruction and more recently as one half of my favorite new band, The Break Up, in addition to her contributions to Fockewolf and early-Atomica. Unfortunately, Cylab's first album, 2004's Unparallel Universe missed most radars, but the band began to gain notoriety for their remixes of Christ Analogue, Agonised By Love, and Collide and finally topping things off with their 2006 self-released sophomore album, Satellites and companion remix album, the subsequent and aforementioned Disseminate. Are we all caught up now? Good, because as good as any previous Cylab material is, Cut & Coil blows it out of the water. There are a number of things I love about this album but what really stands out the most to me is that I think Trayanov and Sol (with contributions from drummer Dre Robinson, who joined the band after his own work on the brilliant Skinny Puppy album Greater Wrong of The Right and just around the time of Satellites) have finally established what exactly the Cylab sound is. Though the post-apocalyptic trip-hop-induced-industrial was evident on previous albums, that sound here feels like an all-out attack, a declaration of war that will not stop until it has skull-fucked everyone in sight. Believe me when I say that Cylab ain't fuckin' around and every listener should enlist in the Cylab army while they're still recruiting. Ok, enough with the war metaphors because in addition to being a hard-hitting album it is also full of heart, mystery, and is sexy as hell, though none of this should could as a surprise as the potential was always there, it's just that the result is finally here kicking down the door (I guess that could be another war metaphor but I swear its my last). A large part of that confidence is displayed in the diversity of the album with elements of industrial, trip-hop, EBM throughout, and then individual songs each having their own thing going on that allows the album to hold consistency while giving each track the ability to stand alone. A great example of this would be a track like, "Trigger" which feels like the rest of the album, has a very punk-rock feel to it that isn't really present anywhere else, but doesn't seem out of place, rather just another movement in the album. I also love that Trayanov demonstrates his classical-piano background on "Cocoon". His piano talents are as beautiful as Sol's vocals and I would love to see the two of them either infuse more of this into the Cylab work or even pursue a side-project that shows off different interests of the same members like Estampie for Qntal or Tanzwut for Corvus Corax. Once again Sol's vocals here are as haunting as ever and Sol's stock is quickly rising with strong showings this year in both Cylab and The Break Up. Severina has really demonstrated her own ability to retain her style and essence while being able to lend her vocals to a range of different sounds. This puts her in the great position where hopefully more bands will begin to contact her for guest vocal work, something she has not been a stranger to in the past with more recent contributions to Hatesex, Caustic, and Embodi. I would love to her Sol work other talented vocalists like Iris' Reagan Jones, Seabound's Frank Spinath, or even similarly-styled Collide/The Secret Meeting vocalist kaRIN. Content-wise I think Cylab also continues to stay strong as the songs here mix science fiction with universal themes of spirituality and rebirth. The band looks forward with new sounds like the previously mentioned "Trigger" and "Dragonfly Dream" while referencing the great work they did on their previous album with the track "Spheres". All of this in addition to really cool album-artwork that really pops, slick production, and hard-work will only help Cylab push the boundaries of what is possible for this band, which I think as hard as it may be to believe given how good this album is, only can go up in my opinion. Favorite Tracks: Skin, Dragonfly Dream, Shifting Time, Red Blood Clay and Dust, and Trigger
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Album a Day: Cylab - Cut & Coil
It's hard to believe that Cut & Coil is only the third album from the transcontinental Cylab (though fourth release if you factor in the remix album Disseminate). Each release from this band shows more and more solidification of sound and style and no doubt this brand new album is their most mature work to date. Cylab, first conceived in 1999 by New York City's Percy Trayanov, began to grow to with the addition of vocals by one of my favorite vocalists Severina Sol, who of course you know as a former member of Diva Destruction and more recently as one half of my favorite new band, The Break Up, in addition to her contributions to Fockewolf and early-Atomica. Unfortunately, Cylab's first album, 2004's Unparallel Universe missed most radars, but the band began to gain notoriety for their remixes of Christ Analogue, Agonised By Love, and Collide and finally topping things off with their 2006 self-released sophomore album, Satellites and companion remix album, the subsequent and aforementioned Disseminate. Are we all caught up now? Good, because as good as any previous Cylab material is, Cut & Coil blows it out of the water. There are a number of things I love about this album but what really stands out the most to me is that I think Trayanov and Sol (with contributions from drummer Dre Robinson, who joined the band after his own work on the brilliant Skinny Puppy album Greater Wrong of The Right and just around the time of Satellites) have finally established what exactly the Cylab sound is. Though the post-apocalyptic trip-hop-induced-industrial was evident on previous albums, that sound here feels like an all-out attack, a declaration of war that will not stop until it has skull-fucked everyone in sight. Believe me when I say that Cylab ain't fuckin' around and every listener should enlist in the Cylab army while they're still recruiting. Ok, enough with the war metaphors because in addition to being a hard-hitting album it is also full of heart, mystery, and is sexy as hell, though none of this should could as a surprise as the potential was always there, it's just that the result is finally here kicking down the door (I guess that could be another war metaphor but I swear its my last). A large part of that confidence is displayed in the diversity of the album with elements of industrial, trip-hop, EBM throughout, and then individual songs each having their own thing going on that allows the album to hold consistency while giving each track the ability to stand alone. A great example of this would be a track like, "Trigger" which feels like the rest of the album, has a very punk-rock feel to it that isn't really present anywhere else, but doesn't seem out of place, rather just another movement in the album. I also love that Trayanov demonstrates his classical-piano background on "Cocoon". His piano talents are as beautiful as Sol's vocals and I would love to see the two of them either infuse more of this into the Cylab work or even pursue a side-project that shows off different interests of the same members like Estampie for Qntal or Tanzwut for Corvus Corax. Once again Sol's vocals here are as haunting as ever and Sol's stock is quickly rising with strong showings this year in both Cylab and The Break Up. Severina has really demonstrated her own ability to retain her style and essence while being able to lend her vocals to a range of different sounds. This puts her in the great position where hopefully more bands will begin to contact her for guest vocal work, something she has not been a stranger to in the past with more recent contributions to Hatesex, Caustic, and Embodi. I would love to her Sol work other talented vocalists like Iris' Reagan Jones, Seabound's Frank Spinath, or even similarly-styled Collide/The Secret Meeting vocalist kaRIN. Content-wise I think Cylab also continues to stay strong as the songs here mix science fiction with universal themes of spirituality and rebirth. The band looks forward with new sounds like the previously mentioned "Trigger" and "Dragonfly Dream" while referencing the great work they did on their previous album with the track "Spheres". All of this in addition to really cool album-artwork that really pops, slick production, and hard-work will only help Cylab push the boundaries of what is possible for this band, which I think as hard as it may be to believe given how good this album is, only can go up in my opinion. Favorite Tracks: Skin, Dragonfly Dream, Shifting Time, Red Blood Clay and Dust, and Trigger
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