Review Summary: An album for the postmodern man
When listening to Apartment 26‘s second album one cannot but be a little unsettled by the artistic choices on which it is built. Indeed, the extremely wide range of musical genres tackled is impressive and can put off many listeners. Recent albums like Korn’s “The Path of totality” or Twelve Foot Ninja’s “Silent Machine” are as many examples of how genre blending can work… or not. But more, they also proved that not everything can be done at a precise time. Mediocrity can pass for greatness if it’s done at the right time and greatness can sometimes be overlooked. The former always try to make profit out of fads and is often as shallow as they are whereas the latter is more meaningful and rooted in history.
Of course, Music for the massive is not an example of mediocrity. Its blunt juxtaposition of metal and swing elements is easily mistakable for a pose, a desperate attempt at getting some attention from a band who is dying and has nothing to lose… and maybe it was a little bit. However, what is important is that the album came off as totally coherent musically and is an achievement of some sort.
Hallucinating, Apartment 26’s first album, was a good piece of industrial metal which reminded of Marilyn Manson or The Stabbing Westward at times. Its sound was harsh, distorted and saturated with electro pulses and effects of all kinds, on the guitars and on the vocals. It knew its path to heaviness and aggression very well even though a certain sense of entertainment was palpable. Of course, it is this playful aspect of the sound which seems to have allowed such an unexpected step as introducing strong elements of swing in it.
It is not the first time that such an experiment was made and even though the two bands are quite different it is interesting to see that KMFDM, another industrial metal band, had already explored most of what is supposed to be original on music for the massive. More, just one year before Apartment 26’s album Marilyn Manson was releasing The Golden Age of Grotesque which song Doll-Dagga Buzz-Buzz Ziggety-Zagg claimed as its core concept a mixing of metal and swing.
The fact that it was done before should not be seen as a negative thing. Originality is a boring chimera. It often hides the fact that there is a deeper bond between seemingly incompatible elements. Industrial is not called industrial for no reason. The music can be associated with the expression of the anxiety of the postmodern man. That very man who industrial society and later consumer society slowly transform into a product (The title of the album can be taken as a pun on Depeche mode’s album Music for the masses). Metallic noises, mechanic pulses, discordant notes, relentless beatings, shouts of pain or never-ending repetitions of samples are all expressions of an inner oppression. But at the core of this individual whose interiority is under constant assaults is a human being who craves for more life. And that’s where swing comes into play.
The invasion of the music by that very identifiable drum rhythmic, these syncopated guitar riffs, that twirling bass, these hailing arrogant vocals is the counterpart of the desperate aspect of industrial. The individual who expresses himself through industrial is fragmented, tormented and hopeless whereas the one who swings is happy, proud, confident and provocative. They both join in an aggressively defiant and rebellious reaffirmation of the pleasure there is to be alive even when threatened by industrial society.
That is what this album is. From the darkest climactic moment of New Year’s Resolution to the most exhilarating ones of Give Me More, Axel Off or Stupid World, wrapping the whole experience in an often ethereal atmosphere, it explores all the emotional complexity of the transhuman and claims that there is hope because there is pleasure.
There is no real misfiring to be found there. The problem there might be would be the rigid rigor with which it was produced. The band seems so focused on the need to be energetic and to convey a feeling of urgency that nothing is left to chance. Of course, the songs win a lot in fluidity thanks to that, they are perfectly well crafted, but they lose in spontaneity.
Another problem arises from the placement of the song “give me more” as an opener. Putting this perfect blend between swing and metal just before a less obvious success (“88”) and a pure industrial song (“strike”) gives a huge anti-climactic feeling. The first listen of the album can be summed up as the repeated deception of not hearing another “give me more.”
The sole true flaw is the album art which is simply ridiculous and awfully ugly. It looks as if the music was considered so inaccessible that listeners needed to be invited or challenged by the little lad to listen to it. It fails at giving a mental image with which one could associate the musical experience provided by the album and it is a shame really because it is a very enjoyable one.
