Error
Self-Titled
(Epitaph)

Very little music is made today that accurately fits George Orwell's 55-year old prophesy of "The Hate Song" ("a savage, barking rhythm which could not exactly be called music"), but Error fulfills it well. Falsely marketed to the punk rock crowd as "punk rock with machines" and "electro-hardcore-punk," Error is really straight industrial with Brett Gurewitz's name attached for punk cred, or possibly because the industrial crowd knows better. Don't think "punk" as in "guitars," think "punk" as "in your face." The band is mostly made of Atticus Ross (a former NIN programmer) with guest vocals by Greg Puciato (of the Dillinger Escape Plan). Also on the record, of mysterious contribution, are Leopold Ross and Bad Religion's Gurewitz.

Puciato screams like the love child of Marilyn Manson and the Wicked Witch of the West. The vocals are double-tracked Manson style - both screams and whispers - and are replete with the same high-school stab at obscenity as substance. Song titles like "Burn in Hell" and "Jack the Ripper" enforce this idea. The beats and vocals are chopped up, compressed and distorted throughout the 17-minute onslaught. Alec Empire provided Error with the template for their sound on his "Destroyer" LP. And like "Destroyer," "Error" is a few neat but repetitive tricks with no subtlety or melody. Besides the beats and vocals, there isn't much evidence of any instrumentation, and the songs sound incredibly similar. The fifth track, "Brains Out," is even a sort of reprise of "Nothing's Working." It ties in with the album art, which vaguely resembles a woman with her brains blown out, presumably from having listened to this EP the whole way through. The pros? It's incredibly loud and obnoxious. Your parents will hate it. The cons? It's incredibly loud and obnoxious. You'll probably hate it.

-Mario


» Buy Self-Titled Now!