Sinsation in Bloomington, MN

It wasn't necessarily inevitable that
Raymond Watts
would end up on
Trent Reznor
's
Nothing
label, but it also made perfect sense when he did, given the Englishman's propensity for
industrial
-flavored doom and destruction. Perhaps the connection was a step too far, given how songs like
"Serial Killer Thriller"
and
"Hot Hole"
had the same feeling of dancefloor/arena stomp and riff of such
Nine Inch Nails
numbers as
"Last."
Then there was the perfectly groan-worthy title
"Painiac,"
which hurts to even say out loud (and let's not moan the various typical-of-the-genre groans about heavy-duty sex and control). However,
Watts
' ear for trying a variety of different styles wasn't completely lost and, in fact, if
Sinsation
was
Pig
's stab at the mainstream, it actually wasn't a bad one. Recording and producing everything himself with the help of guitarist
Steve White
and a couple of guests (including
Underworld
Karl Hyde
, who co-wrote and played on the weird, restrained snarl and metallic clangs of
"Shell"
),
is no slouch in the studio. At his most chillingly effective, he includes a forlorn kind of beauty to the album -- the echoed piano and clatter of
"Analgesia"
and the concluding strings and keyboard tones of
"Transceration."
Some of the demented horn arrangements and doomy vocal samples about American society call to mind
Foetus
, while there are enough
speed metal
guitar parts to satisfy a Guitar Center's worth of thrashers. Indeed, the resemblance of songs like
"Hamstrung on the Highway"
to later
nu-metal
/
efforts from other bands is almost frightening, though
prefers his slightly distanced and distorted singing voice to hoarse MCing. A few songs are more sturm und drang without purpose, such as the brief, spooky
instrumental
"Golgotha,"
but generally speaking, there's at least enough to satisfy most listeners inclined to such sounds. ~ Ned Raggett