This demo release from Sweden’s The Pain Machinery (Anders Karlsson) is a concisely brutal seven tracks of murderous rhythms and devastating noises. What distinguishes The Pain Machinery from other rhythm-noise projects is Ander’s adherence to changing rhythms and beat patterns; he doesn’t find one rhythm and stick to it for the duration of a track. Revenge is an agile and infectious piece, layered in distortion and noise though with a keen sense of danceable rhythms and timing, very much like some of P.A.L.’s work. Present throughout Terminate Transmission is a keen sense of pace and mobility, clearly indicated in Urban Paranoia, which has a mobile dance groove to rival VNV Nation or Leather Strip, but The Pain Machinery riddles this in rage and mechanical devastation. 10 Quiet Lies utilizes IDM sensibilities, jagged and rough as it is. There’s more in common here with Skinny Puppy than any of today’s dark dancefloor bands. Anders also doesn’t shy away from dialogue samples, but doesn’t over-saturate his work either, using samples to provide a underlying narrative to detail the music, but not to dominate. Ecstatic throws in heavily processed guitar to play against the crashing, nihilistic beats and Ander’s highly distorted vocals buried in the wreckage. The result is pure catharsis through sheer chaotic aggression. Fittingly, Terminate Transmission ends with the beat-deprived Enter The Underworld, a miasma of subtle clicks and small noises filtered through increasingly sharp walls of electronic distortion. Not a track one would choose as a favourite, but a proper end to the nihilism of the previous six tracks. The Pain Machinery perfectly blend dance rhythms with the power and aggression of rhythm-noise projects, and is sure to join the likes of Feindflug and Grendel in changing the face of modern industrial music.

Review from Electroage

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