From Italy comes the aggrotech / harsh electro two-headed Psykoxyde. Borderline is an album full of hard aggrotech, and appears on X-records.
The band consists of VON Ilian (vox & lyrics) and ELFIRE (programming). The latter comes from the black metal scene. In 2007 ELFIRE decided to go with his project Magnitudo 8 in the electronic way with very cold power noise as a result. He made two albums. The meeting with VON Ilian rather came accidentally after discussions about music, sex and being under the 'influence' of tons of cocktails. This brought the men together to form this project.
The album Borderline has 12 very hard aggrotech-songs. Elite Insane starts epic. It is reminiscent of the overture to an opera. Classical, but with electronics. Perhaps the duo tries to deceive us. The Rot Inside The Brain has aggressive dark beats and heavily distorted vocals and knocks us down. Red Queen starts as a tune that seems to come from the rave scene and has more up-tempo beats than its predecessor.
Enjoy Inside does what the title says, the bass vibrates through your body until your heart goes into overdrive. The Masonic Apocalypse comes too late, because doom already happened after we just survived the first songs. Warst Du Mit Mir, could that be a ballad? Vain hope, as the intro predicts something else. This track has a slightly timid rhythm and eventually can be labelled as EBM, but also on this track heaven bursts open so the wrath on earth can be unleashed.
Time for religion? Gott ist Mein Kampf would suspect this, but nothing is less true. Lucifer is clearly in control again on these very aggressive aggrotech song. And then there's the eclipse in Schwarze Sonne: very dark and hard. Personal Fuckin Bitch is not what you would call a declaration of love, and the atmosphere is not really better in Pathological Submission which is about the loss of hope. Psycho Oxide tells us what is needed for a Psykoxyde gig: the power of blood. The last track is Autonomic Resurrection, a harsh electro song that includes some more melody.
Psykoxyde is very sturdy aggrotech / harsh electro. The aggression of the past of the band members is evident. It is pitch black and the atmosphere of black metal can be felt and heard. A must for fans of the genre. For those who don’t know the genre that well: give this CD a tery, it might open your eyes (and especially the ears)!