Tweaker - Call The Time Eternity

It's been eight long years since Chris Vrenna has graced our ears with a Tweaker album. Between spending his time producing and programming music, and dealing with many personal hardships over the past few years, such as the unfortunate passing of his father, the divorce from his wife, and the issues involved with recently parting ways with Marilyn Manson, Vrenna still found time to create 11 new brilliant tracks, and has released 'Call The Time Eternity," out now on Metropolis Records.

Many of you know Chris Vrenna as the drummer & programmer from Nine Inch Nails. After parting ways with NIN, Vrenna went on to program, produce and co-produce for many huge names in the music business, such as David Bowie, Rammstein, Lords of Acid, Rasputina, Rob Zombie, The Smashing Pumpkins, and most notably, he joined Marilyn Manson in 2007. He also proved that Reznor wasn't the only member of NIN who could write music by providing the haunting, Industrial influenced soundtracks for the games American McGee's Alice and for Enter The Matrix, and by forming Tweaker in the late 90's. Tweaker gained popularity with the release of their second album '2 a.m. wakeup call' after opening for Skinny Puppy in 2004.

Tweaker is what some consider to be an alternative rock band. Tweaker combines progressive rock and/or shoegaze with electronics to create a very melancholy, but beautiful sound that still has somewhat of a dark Industrial vibe to it. Tweaker has always been it's own thing and continues to defy the limitations of alternative rock.

'Call The Time Eternity' tends to steer itself away from the rock aspect of the band's sound and tends to focus much more on electronics, with songs ranging from trip-hop, to dark electro, to IDM and beyond. This album gives you a little bit of everything while still managing to sound like a complete album. The artwork also takes a new direction on this release, possibly implying that Mr. Vrenna has matured. This may upset some fans because the artwork from the first two albums was revered by us.

Guest vocals on this album include Jessicka Adams from Jack Off Jill (who he also helped produce) and kaRIN from Collide. Abhorrent Derelect also appears on this album. Jessicka's deep, sexy vocals on 'Nothing At All' surprisingly work well with a trip-hop beat, while kaRIN's wispy, ethereal vocals on 'Grounded' only seem fitting for the same genre. Vrenna also masters a cover of Phil Collin's 'I Don't Care Anymore."

The album's opening track, 'Ponygrinder,' includes Vrenna's signature drumming skills with a female robotic voiceover that gives you the impression you're about to be listening to everything you thought the new OhGr album was going to be. As stated before, not many songs feature guitars, but 'Areas of the Brain' fills in that gap along with more insane drumming. 'Hoarding Granules' has an inescapable dub feel to it, which proves that Vrenna has mastered many genres of music. Each song brings something new to the table and expresses various emotions, but still maintains somewhat of a chaotic roller coaster.

I feel that all 11 tracks on this album are fairly solid. Tweaker may not be for everyone however. Fans of IDM and Dark Electro will love this album. If you're a fan of super hard and fast danceable music this may not be the album for you, but I encourage you to give it a try. It's very different from NIN, but there are certain aspects of this album that maintain the sounds of quieter characteristics of NIN. I've been waiting patiently for a new Tweaker release and I am no way disappointed with what I got. I'm not saying that it's the album of the year, but it was a much anticipated release that deserves some recognition. Dec 05 2012