Album Review

Attrition – Kill The Buddha

• 17th Feb 2009

An eerie introduction to this Live set from Attrition leads into… well despair! Not the kind where you want to throw the CD at the nearest moving object, but a dark journey of musical harrow. This is a largely electronic set supported by nonsensical voice sound bites and an almost gospel female entity in Laurie Reade. And while her voice carries and holds beautifully – a lot of the time you can’t help but think that she is merely yawning poetically.

To be fair she does put her singing talents to all sorts of uses. Gothic Muse, ethereal fairy, Operatic Diva… They all seem to come meshed together with Martin Bowes own inflections.
The disc is a fairly sombre affair, with each track taken from assorted live venues around the globe. If anything with the list of dates they have played, it seems a shame that the songs present are so few. This is even more the case as this is especially for the 25th year anniversary. You’d think they would have gone for double disc set. That aside… 25 years does speak volumes of an act that creates a performance (or performances) that comes so beautifully atmospheric.

It is still dark and beautiful mood music for the darkly synthesized inclined.