Remission [Original recording reissued]

Skinny Puppy | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 19, 2001)
• Original Release Date: 1984
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued
• Label: Nettwerk Records
• ASIN: B00005LOQW
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #106,236 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Morbid Desert Ice Cream Eyes So Deceiving Fraternize Carefully, August 6, 2007

By 

Jonathan Dedward "In your face like a can of ... (Nowheresville, Slothwestern North America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Remission (Audio CD)

In 1984 Skinny Puppy released this, what would later be considered their first official album. Though Skinny Puppy's sound has always been a sort of work in progress, all the important elements were already in place. I can only imagine that in 1984 listeners must've been surprised by the combination of bass heavy electronic beats, chilling horror-movie/Twilight Zone sound bites and a vocal melody provided Ogre's morbid stream-of-consciousness chanting.The album opens strongly with the classic track "Smothered Hope," a song that remains a concert staple. It's a dancey song and very catchy, but edged with a sense of malice and anger over a wide variety of global subjects. The rest of the album, unsurprisingly follows suit. "Glass Houses" is even more dancey, even more catchy (to me anyhow) and again Ogre's trademark drug-fiend/cyborg rap really shines. "Incision" and "Far Too Frail" continue the greatness along those same lines, while somehow all sounding very different from one another. At this point the zombie-robot dance party gets a break in the form of "Film" an atmospheric instrumental that, while interesting, gets old pretty fast. After that, the mood turns even bleaker. The grim instrumentation of "Manwhole" picks up where the action left off, but ditching the dance feel, expands upon the dark drone hinted at in "Film's" keyboards. "Manwhole" seethes and moans into the funereal dirge of "Ice Breaker" which brings back Ogre's emotionally frigid metaphorical wordplay. At last, Remission's crowning point, "Solvent" launches, an incomparable medley of driving beat and lyrics delivered with an urgency not matched previously in the disc, signifying maybe the death throes of our Zombie Robot narrator. While not dancey like the previous songs, "Solvent" is elevated by the deadpan seriousness of its every element, from its beats to its vocals and it caps this album brilliantly. Finally, "Sleeping Beast" is a mostly atmospheric track, and while Ogre's vocalizations are front and center here, the song doesn't really add much to the album. "Glass Out" is an deconstructive remix of "Glass Houses" featuring even more bizzare vocal distortion from a broken Ogre and if nothing else kind of highlights the fact that if Remission is a guided tour of cyborg hell, our humble guide is irreparably damaged. It's bloody brilliant however you see it, as a both slowed down and twisted version of one of the best tracks of this incomparable album. Finally, the disc closes with "Brap" a generic name for Skinny Puppy audio experiments and setting a precedent for all future Puppy releases. This "Brap" however is a chilling collage of audio samples of horror movie lines and screams, most of which even now are used as atmosphere at live shows. This is a terrific album... despite some low points it ranks among Skinny Puppy's greatest works.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly original and overlooked by most, March 30, 2002

By 

Michael Thompson (New York City, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Remission (Audio CD)

There is rock and roll that a teenager can use to offend their parents...and then there is music that a teenager wouldn't dare turn up while their parents were home. Remission is such an album. The first time I listened to this EP was in the fall of 1986 and it was nearly impossible to listen to...it completely offended my sensibilities. Yet that was precisely what Kevin Ogilvie and Kevin Crompton had sought to do...to go against the trend of Motley Crue and other mainstream rock and roll. What resulted was an intense set of brilliantly composed songs - some of the most groundbreaking works of the 1980s. Comparisons at the time were made to Alice Cooper or perhaps Pink Floyd in the depths of Syd Barrett's illness...and the comparisons were useless. This album introduced SP's layering of sound and rhythm and the complete breakdown of verse-chorus-verse-bridge that was the trademark for years to come. While difficult at first to digest, the brilliance of songs like Incision and Manwhole/Icebreaker were impossible to resist.

SP signatures abound in this album. Incision and Icebreaker introduce the use of tapes, samples, and other sources to create a dark and chilling atmosphere. Other songs like Solvent, with its driving, chilling metallic arrangements, are highly suggestive of themes of violence and mental illness that SP returned to again and again throughout their tormented time together. And Sleeping Beast offers a peek into a whole genre of breakbeat that hadn't yet been named.

An absolute necessity for SP fans.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Never too frail, August 31, 2001

By 

Baka Desu "dialoguewiththestars" (TOP SECRET LOCATION CENSORED) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Remission (Audio CD)

The first noticable thing about this CD as you fire it up is that it is almost "upbeat" in its synthwork compared to later releases. It's also pretty simplistic and crude-sounding, but imagine the time-frame: 1984. I mean, this was during the height of USSR's power!

Another thing to regard is that only six songs were on the original record. "Glass Out" was added to the cassette, and the rest are slight remixes of "BITES" tracks. Of the original six, "Smothered Hope", "Glass Houses", "Far Too Frail", and "Solvent" are completely awesome, "Sleeping Beast" is pretty good and "Brap" is OK but pointless. "Glass Out" is a creepy remix of "Glass Houses" that makes the whole song reel around like a drunkard, with fragments of broken vocals all around.

The "BITES" tracks have all been re-done to remove the tinny, clunky percussive effects from the originals. "Incision" is pretty good, but repetitive lyrics-wise. "Film" and "Manwhole" (which was supposed to be the "Icebreaker" intro but didn't make it into "BITES") are great, and "Icebreaker" is plain feckin' awesome!! It reaches a new area of atmosphere without the tinny, obtrusive percussion from the original.

Oh yes, and that sound on "Glass Houses" is a fretless bass.

Brap evermore