Album Review
Caffeine Kill – Still Bleeding
When the musical classes graduated from Gary Numan high school they spread far and wide: Marilyn Manson, Trent Reznor, Fear Factory, the Smashing Pumpkins, the list continues like an electro drum beat- and they all put their suitable dark waltz spin on the spiralling electronic madness.
Caffeine Kill occupy the space before genuine cross-contamination fully began and are several steps ahead of the initial movement, interestingly playing a more aggressive take on Numan’s newest material, rather than blunt force trauma more a strong slap to the face.
Impossible as it seems, Caffeine Kill have managed to use every single electronic effect imaginable on ‘Still Bleeding’.
There is such an atmosphere created with the dark shadowed guitar, mixing with alien artefact bleeps & disturbance that initially it can be overwhelming, ‘Twisted Dementia’ has disjointed and affecting moments akin to a remixed horror film soundtrack with a riff continuing from ‘The Beast Within’ relentless, calculating and gothic- like a terminator with y’know, black eye shadow.
The keyboard moments always seem to overshadow the more guitar heavy excursions, particularity ‘Faultless Imperfection’ – with a slight turn of a knob this could have been a very different album, but when the long drawn out siren comes in you realize it falls on the right side of tasteful.
CK have managed to squeeze every single electronic drop of noise out of this record and on ‘War Cry’, easily one of the albums heaviest tracks so far, it comes together; painting a colour and feel Bowie would have potentially slipped into.
Still bleeding is confused, not because of the lack of direction or style but because it wants to be, it wants to be dark, moody and affecting, moving through ‘Teen’ and ‘Ultraviolet’ the sounds sometimes suffer, Jay moving closer to a Suede impersonation and away from what they clearly do well. The track ‘What are you waiting for?’ is worth the admission price alone.
It’s difficult but recommending a concept album is almost madness, but that’s certainly an area CK need to consider. On an album of strong well played material the only thing missing here is a tie to bind.