Citizen Anomaly - The Paradoxic Project

This review was commissioned through Ko-fi. However, it bears no weight on the score or decision. All reviews are written from an unbiased standpoint. 

Citizen Anomaly is an industrial metal project from Gold Coast, Australia whose discography has been empty up until this point. An interesting duo who started with no experience and just a couple of laptops – a feat that might seem heretic in metal, but is well at home in the industrial scene. The duo has always been drawn to music that pushes both sonic and conceptual boundaries, and therefore seek to achieve the same level of musicianship in their own work. That being said, their debut album “The Paradoxic Project” is their testimony to their mission statement. This conceptual piece revolving around man versus machines versus nature is a thirty-minute industrial-metal instrumental piece with elements of synthwave intertwined. While many of the electronic elements on "The Paradoxic Project" provide an entertaining sci-fi blend, the metal parts of this album are rather simplistic and generic. 

The first song that comes on brings in a bit of a lounge setting – as if it were to be the main theme to a video game before you hit that play button. It’s pretty chill and the heavenly backing synth and other warped samples that make their way through the intro give it a sci-fi feel. Soon enough, the guitars come chugging in; this is where Citizen Anomaly shows a bit of their generic stride. The chugging riffs and drum work is fairly standard for the genre through and through and if it weren’t for the previously mentioned samples, I would write these sections off. It’s the “industrial” part, so to speak, of Citizen Anomaly that’s carrying them along. 

To be short and non-redundant, I felt much the same for ‘Machine City’ as I did during the mid-section of ‘Executed Procedure 271’. Lots of standard metal sounds that I can attribute to any metal project under the sun. I did appreciate the quieter section around the two-minute and thirty-second mark. It gives some cinematic ambiance with the robotic voice, swaying synth line, and Geiger counter -  and a look into the narrative Citizen Anomaly is hinting at. I formed the same opinion with ‘Sci-Fi Staunch’ as I did with ‘Executed Procedure 271’. 

I wasn’t too fond of ‘Intruders’ mainly due to what I can only describe as a cut, cut, cut sort of vibe the song gives off. It seems as if every time Citizen Anomaly wants to get something started, the guitars or beat just cuts to something else but not in a uniformed fashion. It feels as if they tried to throw a lot into one song and couldn’t make the glue hold it all together. The space-age ambiance brought to ‘Can’trol’ gives it a wonderful little vibe but, again, the drums and guitar just don’t quite reach the same level as the electronics.  

Citizen Anomaly throws me for a loop with ‘Facilitating Locality’. This two-minute and thirty-six second plays with samples, bass guitar, radio signals, cheers from a crowd, and the sound of a gun being loaded. I feel like this should have been a one-minute intermission track rather than its current length. Simply put, it overstays its welcome a bit too long. ‘Wall of Steel’ ramps up the pace but is rather unremarkable. ‘The Wall of Flesh’ throws in some tribal drums, playing around with that and big beat breaks; it’s actually a really, really fun track that I wasn’t expecting out of this album. The only thing I wish was cut short is the final fifty seconds or so; it goes into an drone-like drain with a few guitar plucks before finally vanishing. That gets boring after ten or twenty seconds and doesn’t work in the long run. ‘Fauna Omega’ finishes off the album. The instrumentation is chill and lax, and the backing ambiance of a jungle like environment is also nice. It’s one of those songs that I feel I could use to help me fall asleep. 

Citizen Anomaly’s debut album is one that disappoints more than it impresses. While I find a lot of their electronic and sample work to be invigorating, the metal aspect of this duo is rather downhill. While it doesn’t sound bad, it does sound bland, generic, and otherwise boring for the genre. Looking at the forefront of the industrial metal movement, there are a ton of producers and musicians who are able to bring their vision to life through unique and engaging sounds and techniques – Author & Punisher being one of them. I understand this is only a debut album, but going on record stating that they stand for innovation of the industrial metal sound, and annihilation of the generic is rather contrary to their musical output. Nonetheless, I’m curious to see how this duo improves throughout the course of their career. They have the framework to do so, now they just need to up the ante. Five-and-a-half out of ten.