Icon of Coil - Machines Are Us

Our Norwegian neighbors, Icon of Coil, hereby releases another full-length album after a relatively long tour with there earlier album 'The Soul is in the Software' which were released for almost exactly two years ago.

Icon of Coil has at times left their danceable and Techno-inspired EBM which have been around for all their earlier albums. Nowadays they have got in to more electronica styled music and sometimes more heavy techno in a try to renew (and make better?) themselves a bit. Still there is no reason to panic, mass hysteria or suicide for those of you who likes Icon of Coils earlier work as much as I do. You will get your daily portions with tracks like "Remove/Replace", "Existance in Progress" and "Dead Enough for Life".

I have to be a bit not so pedagogical and mention a song that does not fit the category I mention above. The track is named "Wiretrap" and is a tribute and a confession of love to the speaker itself. With a charming sound and with the kind of smart line "With your brother we dance in stereo" it sticks like fast drying paperhanger's paste and refuses to live like a psychotic she-wolf to her kids.

Unfortunately I don't get as excited and wet in my pants (like my old electro buddies back home at Gotland would have said) of this release as the one before which I think really hit the spot. Sure, it's heavy, danceable and very Icon of Coil, but without the spirit, aggressiveness and without the adrenaline which pumped in to their Norwegian veins before.

This review was written 2004 and initially published on Neurozine.com Jan 01 2004