review :: Royce Icon
::
URL (offsite)
This is the third installment in a series of conceptual recordings put out by Italian experimentalists ODRZ. The concept is this: they took samples from working at a factory and use the samples as the main source for each album. Each album in the series is supposed to chronicle a hour of the italian workday. The end result is a 60 minutes of rhythmic industrial noise goodness, but I'd be mister liar pants on fire if I said I don't have some gripes here.
Like the other installment in this series I own, things get very redundant after the first 5 minutes or so. The samples are really cool rhythmic found sound blended with feedback and other rather nice grit and grime, but everything just keeps going on basically in the same exact direction for the entire 60 minute period, like someone just hit repeat on a 5 minute track, or just taped down a key on their sequencer or something, occasionally changing the pattern every 15 minutes or so.
Like I said before, I do enjoy the stuff here, and that's what's got my panties all in a bunch. The sounds here and on the other disc are fucking amazing, the noises are dark and brooding, the samples percussive and abrasive, kind of like a more organic Seilwolf, but they just keep going on and on and it drives me insane. Instead of just looping a couple tracks for 60 minutes on all the albums, ODRZ should have cut the material down to a bunch of 5 minute pieces and then compiled it to an album. That would be 60 minutes of near perfection. Alas, that's not the case.
