Review Summary: Pushing boundaries and buttons with a wink and a nudge.
Aggrotech has all but ceased to exist over the last decade as a significant presence in the electronic underground. Most genre stalwarts seemed to disband or fade into obscurity as their fan-bases aged and moved on. Some chose shifting creative direction to the more conventional realm of industrial and industrial metal, typically resulting in greater commercial success. Jay Ruin, formally Joss Iles chose to upgrade his relatively short-lived project CeDigest with aggrotech roots firmly in mind. Plus, a certain twist. In 2014, following a four-year hiatus, Jay reemerged with the Ruinizer project and a bold new style, unfortunately dubbed ‘swaggrotech’. This gives us a lot to unpack.
It’s an odd foot to put forward. No doubt a conscious decision meant to both repulse purists and attract the curious. The ‘swag’ in swaggrotech seems to denote a combination of hip-hop inspired verse flow with complementary time-signatures and braggadocious lyrical tendencies. This accents the already flamboyant chaos comprising this project’s flashy, electro-industrial hodgepodge. If you’re picturing “Attila, but Industrial” You’re heading in right direction, although Ruinizer’s creative direction yields a significantly greater range of subject matter and typically better quality than the average party metal band.
Ruinizer’s second LP is as interesting a specimen as one might guess based on Jay’s penchant for wordplay. After leading with a brief intro and a pair of serviceable, harsh-industrial tracks, ‘All Hail The Might’ opens with a sample of Jeff Goldblum telling a joke. It caught me off-guard and seemed to suggest that I ought to laugh along with the album rather than at it. In fact, many of the generously apportioned samples throughout add levity to their respective songs. The effectiveness of the approach is subjective, but it makes for a more entertaining experience should the listener choose to embrace the more gonzo aspects of the album’s character.
Though largely still a product of Jay Ruin’s background in aggrotech and harsh industrial, Decimation In H.D. leans heavily into its gimmick, incorporating a substantial amount of the aforementioned swag throughout the album. The tracks ‘An Army Of Ruin’ and ‘Subhuman’ are good examples of effective compromise between industrial aesthetic and aggression coupled with hip-hop attitude and flow. The result isn’t always seamless. ‘Mechanichrist’ is essentially what would happen if Insane Clown Posse experimented with voice-mods. The track ends up sounding anemic and never evolves past a basic, albeit short rap outing. It remains an outlier among the rest of the album’s tracklist as most songs choose to strike a healthy balance between the ‘swag’ and the… er... ‘grotech’.
Although Decimation’s stylistic balancing act is impressive, it’s self-awareness only does so much to mitigate the damage of some undeniably cringe-worthy lyrics. The sugar-rush of EDM synth arrangements coupled with Jay’s brazen vocal choices could also prove too overbearing for the more discriminating listener. Those willing to meet the album on its terms and the more adventurous however, will undoubtedly have a great deal of fun with this. Provided they’re willing to turn off their brains every once in awhile.
