Customer Reviews

Remission

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

I must agree with others, that this is the best album Skinny Puppy put out. While it did not enjoy the amount of production funding that their requisite efforts did, it manages to be consistently good. That can not be said of all that they put out over the years. Perhaps because it was when they they could stand each other(Ogre and Key that is). This is also when Bill Leeb was still in the band(B4 FLA). I still enjoy this album a lot. And, seeing as I bought it back in '92, I'd say I've gotten more than my moneys worth from it. It's interesting to note that Trent Reznor(the Hack), was a big SP fan. You can tell because so much of his style was ganked from Ogre, and SP in general. This is where it all began though, and the point when SP became a serious, if not highly influential, band. E.G. I highly recomend this album to even the most casual of fan.

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

A haunting, mesmerizing, grandiose, and ambitious debut album, "Remission" was the Puppy's terrorist wake-up call to the world of music. I wish I would have known about this record when it first came out; it would have been interesting to see just how much it revolutionized, or at the very least - manipulated - an entire genre. If you are a fan industrial music (and boy, do I hate using that misnomer) you've probably heard about SP's prominent influence since the mid-80's... an influence that began with the notorious "Back & Forth" demo and this debut. Compared to the rest of the Puppy catalog, "Remission" is a decidedly primitive affair: C. Key's furious electronic beats punctuate his archaic textures, melodies, and twisted sound manipulations while Ogre attempts poetic catharsis by lashing out against his own personal demons with a microphone. Songs such as "Smothered Hope" and the butchered "Glass Out" are just as vital, if not moreso, in the world of music today. I have other favorites to mention here, but it's pointless to even begin - just hear it for yourself. Later albums proved to be much more textured and full-sounding - in part due to the help of additional members, specifically Dwayne - plus their obvious strides in their knowledge and collective abilities of sound manipulation and (de)construction. For this album, however, less was more - as the cliché goes. Get this to see and hear where the masters made their mark on history with a vicious act of musical terrorism.

Ah, Remission... the beginning of what would later become an industrial legacy. It's a testament to Skinny Puppy's talent and vision that people are still buying and listening to this album all over the world, over 15 years after its release. The music here is more simplistic than their other releases, lacking the benefits of greater funding and more technological advances... but it didn't stop SP from making an outstanding CD. Overall the sound is a little more upbeat than the later releases, and Ogre's vocals have a very mechanical "robot-voice" ring to them. My personal favorites here would have to be Incision, Glass Houses, Solvent, Icebreaker, and Smothered Hope. Get Too Dark Park and Vivisect VI first... then grab this one to see how that killer sound got started.

This year, this album turns 20 years old - and I still cannot believe how groundbreaking it was back then. If you can fathom what was being released during 1984 (Duran Duran, Prince, REM, Quite Riot, etc) this work of art exceeds anything that could be comprehended back then. A brilliant use of synths/samplers/sequencers, vocal poetry, and a vision - absolute brilliance. As for the comments of the tape release with Side-2 being backward, it was a print error by Nettwerk (the record label) & an accident. I have a copy; took the CD release to hear the second side normally!

Get this CD - any fan of electronic experimental crossed with horror movies owes it to themselves.

this is one of my fav skinny puppy albums(next to Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse and Cleanse, Fold & Manipulate). it's gothic, mechanical, eerie, danceable and atmospheric. it goes right up there with Coil's Scatology and Depeche Mode's Some Great Reward as one of the most technologically and creatively innovative eletronic/industrial albums to come from the early to mid 80's. i love all the lyrical work Ogre put into this album, and along with all the horror/thriller movie samples, it makes for a dark, creepy, sinister and nocturnal recording. and as always, cEvin's early work is genius! raw synths, metallic percussion, eerie strings, glitchy squiggles, distorted 808's, Kraftwerkian-sequencing and Throbbing Gristle-like aggression make for a very interesting album! all the tracks are perfect from start to finish. if you love synth-pop and gothic music, get this album now!

The first time I heard this album, which i had bought at a used CD store and forgot about, I was speechless. I listened to it once again and made copies for all my friends. This album is so unbelievably ahead of its time, and Skinny Puppy is one of the most overlooked bands in electronic music. Since the first day I heard it Remission has been my favorite album and to this day I can listen to it over and over without it getting old. Its amazing that this stuff was made in 1984, and still sounds better than most industrial coming out of the 90s. Definitly a keeper.

The first time I heard this cassette, and yes it was a LONG time ago, there was a bizarre element about it. The WHOLE 2nd side of the tape was for some reason all played backwards. I thought that it was supposed to be like that, but of course I was wrong. I have since lost that copy, and I wish to GOD I still had it. The greatest thing about this cassette I had was I listened to it in my dorm room in college and I had a neighbor think that I was truly possessed because of the backwards songs. He would pray for me each day, and all I could do was laugh my a** off. Overall though, this is one of Skinny Puppy's better albums. Buy it if you don't already own it. You will be glad you did.