Flesh Field - Strain

So, I only just found out about an awesome band that's now broken up and not doing anything anymore. This band is Flesh Field, an industrial/aggrotech project headed by Ian Ross. The last finished album was Strain, which was released in 2004. The female vocals on this album were done by Wendy Yanko, who was new to this album. (The previous albums had their female vocals sung by Rian Miller.)

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Most songs begin with an orchestral bit that transitions to fast, hard, but not necessarily harsh electro-industrial melody. The symphonic sounds tend to be scattered throughout some of the songs, too. Every song tends to have that sense of urgency, too, like the listener is supposed to be intentionally active. Although all the songs are enjoyable for different reasons, the songs for which I felt the most affinity were "The Eucharist", "Seethe", "Amoeba", and "The Collapse".

"The Eucharist" appears to be a commentary on religion, particularly Christianity. My interpretation of this is that people will be smothered by their own religion if they don't think critically about it and unquestioningly submit to it. The sounds are particularly sinister with the slow, deep beat (somewhat resembling a heartbeat, if you think about it) in the back. There's a fair bit of mixing of noise with melody that makes this song really interesting to listen to.

"Seethe" begins with a choir-like vocals mixed with a fast thumping rhythm. The entire song throughout has a simple message of telling an arrogant jerk that he or she no longer matters, and the mix of the thumping and buzzing in the background is appropriate to the feeling the song is trying to convey.

"Amoeba" seems considerably more depressing than the previous two songs that I mentioned. The musicians are trying to jam the "It's not you. It's me." message in every line, explaining how someone feels like he or she is causing harm to someone else by simply being in that person's life. There is a fair bit of violin in this song, which is not surprising, considering the mood.

"The Collapse" is a perfect song for club dancing, in my opinion. The lyrics show a fair bit of minimalism, merely giving an abstract sense of someone's downfall, but I'm not really giving notice to this song for its lyrical content. I'm a big fan of the overall beat and the use of percussion and synths. It's the type of song that is hard not to start dancing to when you're alone in your room with your headphones.

Overall, I really love this album. I wish I had gotten into this band sooner, but that's how it goes. Strain was the last finished album, but if you go to the band's website, you can download instrumentals for the unfinished album that was supposed to come out last year.