Customer Reviews

Too Dark Park

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Too Dark Park" is the best-loved Skinny Puppy album amongst hardcore fans and certainly a good place to start for the uninitiated. SP's previous effort "Rabies" (1989) is slightly easier to listen to, mostly due to slick production courtesy of Al Jourgensen (please tell me you know who that is). However, unless your mind is of the warped and delinquent variety, you'll find that Skinny Puppy is ANYTHING but easy listening. Skinny Puppy is a horror show for the ears, sonic masochism, a terrible but engaging nightmare that you can't wake from. In that respect, TDP is arguably the most quintessential Puppy album. It's harsh, dense, chaotic, and angry as hell, a culmination of the sound that they had been driving towards since they banded in 1982. (Their next album, 1991's "Last Rights", is a slight departure into experimentalism while 1996's "The Process" sounds like a completely different band.)

But be forewarned. I suspect that most people won't be able to recognize this as music. People who consider industrial-lite fluff like Filter and Stabbing Westward "cutting edge" or "hardcore" are in for a big, big (big) shock. In fact, they'd probably do best to pass on this band; I doubt they'd "get it". But you're probably here because you want something BIZARRE and DIFFERENT!

"Too Dark Park" jerks to life with "Convulsion", probably the most dense and chaotic track on the album. Inter-cut with samples from a documentary on LSD, Nivek Ogre's vocals and lyrics make it clear upfront that he's just about lost it. "Tormentor", the next track, is my favorite. Cevin Key and Dwayne Goettel morph what could've been a relatively standard industrial-dance track into something dark and sinister. "Spasmolytic" is just flat out insane. Phrases and words are strung together in maniacal fashion, suggesting an intense and hellish drug withdrawal whilst living in urban squalor. The single version of "Spasmolytic" gets the minimalist treatment, making it spookier and decidedly better (it should've been on this album, but you can get it on "The Singles Connection"). "Rash Reflection" shares a similar electro-sound with "Tormentor", but is decidedly more claustrophobic and terrifying. I'll stop here, but suffice it to say that every track is its own private nightmare and every one is equally as good as the next.

The lyrics are written in a drug-crazed William S. Burroughs style of free association. It's hard to understand what's going on, but that's all part of the experience. TDP forces you to live the nightmare of drug addiction/withdrawal and the mental chaos associated with it; the music adds emotional and visceral chaos, churning the whole vile mixture out of control. In case you're wondering, you don't have to be an addict or ex-addict to appreciate it - I've never touched a hard drug in my life. Drugs are a central theme, but there's so much more going on here.

As great as this album is, it's not even my favorite Skinny Puppy album. In the beginning they had a lo-fi 80's synth sound that was just perfect, plus they used a lot of obscure horror movie samples = fun times. So while this album is great, it gets even better.

Brap on.

This was the first SP album I ever heard. I was still in high school in 97 and my coworker and I had similar musical taste. I was listening to Coal Chamber's first album (I know, not quite SP, right?) in the shop radio and she said, "I should bring in some Skinny Puppy. I'll bet you love em." So she grabbed this tape and gave it to me to borrow. If any of you remember the original pressing of the cassette tape, I think it was a white cover with just a pink SP logo on the front... needless to say I didn't expect too much after seeing that. So that night I listened to it and I was so very confused. I could hear some incredibly awsome guitar riffs and beats in the background, but for some reason this band decided to layer in some crazy chaotic noises all over it so you never got a steady beat- like with typical bands.

I listened to the tape a couple of times and after a few listens I still didn't "get it". The only thing I could remember after the album was over was Ohgr muttering, "Kiss the master's feet." It still haunts me to this day. So I gave her back the tape a few days later, I didn't even copy it because I didn't think I'd really listen to it again. Well, fast forward a couple of months and you'll see me in a mom and pop record store. They dealt mainly in imports but had a fairly wide selection of out of prints and some obscure no-name bands. Well, curiosity killed my cat and I decided to see what else Skinny Puppy had done. So I saw a few cds, but none with the white cover and pink symbol on the front. So, I asked the guy that worked there which SP album was the best and he pointed me to "Too Dark Park" with it's strangely child like cover art. I figured, "What the hell, If this is the best..."

Imagine my surprise when I put this in my car stereo and cranked the bass up. I was stunned. THIS is their best album!? So I actually kept my car parked in that spot and didn't move until I was done with the first song, "Convulsion" which ends up being like my 4th favorite SP song. I don't know how or why, but something clicked. I finally got it. Maybe it was my 10" woofer or just how music sounds different in the car, or maybe it was because the tape was a lesser quality than the cd I had just purchased. I was speachless. I quickly scanned each song and listened to a minute or so of every song. When I was back to track #1, I turned my car off and walked back into that store with my checkbook. I bought every other SP album they had. You should have seen the look in that store clerks eyes.

Since then I have been a die hard SP fan and they remain my favorite band. To this day, no other album by any artist has ever had such an emotional impact on my musical taste. I love every SP album for different reasons, but this is the only one I consider to be perfect. Maybe it's my emotional attachment to it, but to me it is flawless.

This is an extremely savage, angry, but clever record. The layering in each song is nothing short of brilliant. If you dissect any one song apart, you could find enough music to create 2 or even 3 songs by any "normal" band. The thing I love about SP is that there is always a slight hint of the 80s in their music. Deep down, the underlying core of the music is 80s disco/rock with a sinister edge. Maybe more so in the older music than the "Too Dark Park" era. That might be a bad explaination of it, but that's what I think. Everyone should listen to this album, even if you hate it, it so deserves a listen. Turely one that will never be forgotten like so many mass produced shiesty bands today.

So now I say unto thee, "Kiss the master's feet!"

Too Dark Park came on the heels of Rabies, which in his more charitable moments Cevin Key described as "a big party." When this album came out, I was relieved to hear that SP had backed down from the brink of absolute hardcore and were revisiting the beauty and the depth of the synthesizer.

TDP opens with Spasmolytic, which is highly suggestive of orgiastic violence...a staggering march beat buried underneath a maze of the usual samples of movies and television but also gunfire and explosions. TDP then settles into "Tormentor", which is a more danceable number, "Spasmolytic", which is a fast, driving beat but in a dark and highly suggestive manner of urban decay. It is followed by "Rash Reflection", whose repeating musical and lyrical theme ("kiss the master's feet") evokes dark images of corporate power, manipulation and hopeless submission. Guitars are present, but they are drenched in reverb and atmospheric rather than the core elements of the songs.

The album then makes a right turn into "Natures Revenge," which comprises some of the most dark yet gentle music that SP had made since VivisectVI's "Testure", replete with somber pads and fretless bass riffs. This probably highlights some of the best of Dwayne Gottel's sensibilities in songwriting and arrangement. It continues with "Shoreline Poison", another melancholy, dark, slower song, and then loses a bit of focus and atmosphere with the remaining tracks bouncing in and out of different tempos. Nevertheless, a very strong and compelling album, perhaps the most accessible of them all.

I saw this album performed live on their TDP tour and it brought home some serious facts about this group...that this is a band squarely in the horror genre. Between video screens projecting their interpretation of the songs, and Ogre's brilliant stage performance (the first half hour he struggled to escape from a gauze-wrapped, blood-packed, head to toe full body cast with only a hole for his mouth to breathe) the most jaded thugs that had come to deliver bone crushing mosh pit antics were left slack jawed, motionless and silent. I left the concert emotionally distressed and thoroughly intellectually provoked. While this tour was perhaps the most provocative and potentially offensive of their history, their ability to leave the worst of the crowd completely stunned and upset spoke volumes about this group's importance and impact.

I agree with the other reviewers, that this album is not for casual listeners of industrial or goth music. Skinny Puppy were the most innovative and talented industrial musicians in my opinion. Industrial music is supposed to be clashing, abrasive, cold, chaotic, etc. Certainly not warm and fuzzy music. But one of the other reviews states that there are no catchy arrangements on this album. I disagree.

Two of the songs, "Shore Lined Poison" and "Morpheus Laughing", I would definitely say have a catchy beat. Both of these songs feature industrial dance beats and a bit more melody that you can follow along with and eventually learn the song structure. These songs also feature sirens, blaring synths, samples, and random noises of things being destroyed, like the one that sounds like an audio cassette tape being rewound and the tape player starts eating the tape.

I think that if you are a primarily a rhythmic-type music listener like me (one who always pays attention to the beats, drum, bass sounds etc., and favors songs with interesting rhythm sections), you may enjoy Skinny Puppy songs more than others. The vocals take some getting used to, and maybe you'd never get used to some of the more abrasive songs, but people who love noisy industrial rhythms can recognize that these songs are "catchy." That's my two cents.

It seems that whenever I hear about Skinny Puppy, they're mentioned alongside Ministry (in fact, that was how I first heard about them). And while anyone could do a lot worse than to be held in Ministry's company, such a connection is not entirely fair to the Puppy, as the abrasive metallic stomp of Ministry isn't much in evidence here. This is something different, and, dare I say, better. The songs on "Too Dark Park" could perhaps best be described as a cross between the abstract leftfield techno of Autechre and the ultra-harsh polyrhythmic assault of Meshuggah. Of course, given the fact that Autechre and Meshuggah are two of the best acts currently working on this planet, that's most certainly a good thing. If you're looking for conventional song structures on this album, you're definitely in the wrong place. Want accessible, catchy arrangements? Sorry. Melody? Forget it. Much like Meshuggah's, Skinny Puppy's is the sound of a bleak future dystopia; cold, emotionless, and challenging, its soundscapes are expansive and claustrophobic at the same time. From beginning to end, "Too Dark Park" is a complex and intimidating listen, filled with wildly inventive rhythms and Nivek Ogre's signature rasp. It appears that the final nails are being put into the coffin of nu-metal, so one can only hope Skinny Puppy and those like them represent the direction music will take the day after tomorrow. They deserve it.

I first heard this album in the early 1990s, just as I was getting into industrial music. The first words that came to mind were dischordant, grating, and violent. I liked it for those reasons (have always liked dark music), but the more I listened to it, the more I noticed something else about it. Buried in the layers of samples, synths, and distorted vocals was a clear harmony. And it wasn't simplistic, sequenced stuff like you might expect from a band relying heavily on machines; it was a fairly complicated performance, with flowing basslines and melodic waveforms. I don't know if Skinny Puppy was trying for that, or if it was just a result of mixing together so many electronic sounds, but it worked. Now when I think of Too Dark Park, I think of words like mature, complicated, and progressive. This was definitely a step in a new direction for electronic music, and Puppy carried it even further with their next album Last Rights, which was even harder to figure out at first. It would have been interesting to see where cEvin Key and Dwayne Goettel would've taken this genre, but with Dwayne's death in 1995, we will never know. All we are left with is the amazing body of work that Skinny Puppy produced, far ahead of its time, which will no doubt go down in history as one of the most impressive and influential collections of the 20th century. Although Too Dark Park doesn't quite illustrate Puppy's overall career, which is perhaps better summed up by albums like Vivisect IV and Cleanse, Fold, and Manipulate, I think it shows the direction they were headed. Anyone with even a slight interest in electronica, techno -- or even Mozart or Coltrane for that matter -- should give this record a listening. Just remember to hear the music within the noise. It's there.

Skinny Puppy are practically legends in the "Industrial" music genre along with Ministry. And when it comes down to a pure definition of "Industrial music," I always tend to think of Skinny Puppy as fitting that mold. Of course, Skinny Puppy has always had more of a sense for the "theatrical" than most other Industrial acts, which in return spawned the Marilyn Manson's of today. If you don't believe me, then check out Marilyn's stilts the next time you are at one of his shows. Musically, Skinny Puppy differs from any other Industrial band I have ever heard. And yeah, they use a lot of synths and drum machines, but it's the way that they use them that makes them unique and experimental. The soundscapes on this record are dark and metallic. The theme of this record revolves around drug addiction, and the songs on this record take you within the deepest, darkest depths of an addict's tortured psyche. Orge has a very demonic sounding voice, yet it is also very mechanical and there is even a hint of vulnerability underneath the surface. This is pretty brutal music. It is very different from the almost electro Goth sounding new wave music that Industrial is known for today. The lyrics seem like they were written during a drug induced haze, so they are really long, stream of consciousness type of rants. It adds to the schizophrenic effect of the music nicely.

Overall, this is a classic album. A must buy for anyone who is even remotely interested in the genre of "Industrial" music.

Coming after the release of their album Rabies, which was was co-produced by Al Jourgensen, Too Dark Park represents a return to the more starkly evanescent feel of their earlier work such as Mind the Perpetural Intercourse and VivViSect VI. Released at a time when other industrial acts like Ministry, Frontline Assembly and KMFDM were moving towards a more industrialmetal feel, Skinny Puppy showed in this album that the more complex synth-based arrangements and distorted vocals still had much to offer. Additionally, in Too Dark Park, Ogre continued to use industrial music as a vehicle for the expression of social and political issiues, particularly the continuing destruction of the environment and our treatment of other forms of life. Although such subject matter has been a ubiquitous part of SP's music since the beginning, Too Dark Park seems to be their most overt socially conscious release, as tracks such as Nature's Revenge, Shoreline Poison, Grave Wisdom and Morpheus Laughing Attest.
In other tracks such as Spasmolytic and T.F.W.O. the intensity of Rabies is still evident and works well to beautifully compliment the more brooding soundscapes created in Rash Reflection and Nature's Revenge .
Too Dark Park is a an album that has it all, whether ones loves hard driving ebm or the nightmare world of meandering terror beats. Like most of SP's releases this album is as fresh now as it was the day it was released, and that is saying alot considering just how much industiral music has evolved and become so driven by computer sampling and technology. Anyone who has been lucky enough to see SP live knows what I am talking about, as they are one industrial band that were musicians first and foremost, rather than just a bunch of guys pressing buttons on an iMac. Althouh there are some great acts out there now, few bands will ever equal the intensity and raw emotion that Skinny Puppy could evoke in an audience or the eerie ambience created when listening to on of their albums at 2:30 in the morning. For those not familiar with Skinny Puppy this would be a great album to start with, as it has elements of all their previous work, and shouldn't be neglected.
Brap On!

Too Dark Park is everything Skinny Puppy could do. As other have stated, this is industrial music at its greatest. There is really no way to describe this album. I have listened to this album at least once a week for almost 15 years. I crave it. It is not commercial and it may not be music to some people. But it is the most appriciated collection of organized noise every created. Skinny Puppy made every other band labeled as 'industrial' look like idiots playing chess. No one has come close to making anything like this in 15 years so I think it is your only chance to hear something special.

So ok..one might get made fun of for saying in front of puppy fans but I really enjoy nine inch nails. I loved the different sounds, and some of the synthy stuff. So I decided to see what else in the genre was like this (slowly I have begun the journey into better music, I realize the error of my ways by enjoying bands like linkin park and whatnot). So I read around on amazon and other sites about what is the best to get, so many people refered me to skinny puppy, and other industrial bands, needless to say I began listening to other industrial bands. Rammstein, KMFDM, and some of the reznor inspired manson stuff (antichrist superstar) and whenever I would look for more, one band would always show up on the recomend list, and that band would be skinny puppy.

So I decided, hey why not.. they inspired NIN so they cannot be that bad, so I gave all their new CD's a new try... and it was not really my thing, and many fans told me to go with the older stuff like VIVIsectVI and too dark park. I eventually found some copys of both and took a listen... boy was I in for a suprise

First thing you will notice, if you listen to much modern music you will notice that it sounds very old(that might be all the synths (kind of like how pretty hate machine sounds kinda old) , not the bad old, just something that is old that aged very well. Like nothing you have ever heard. From the title song convulssion you are confused, and scared. Where are the melodys? Where is the chourus? Where is the singing... and most off... when does the music begin? If you are anything like me you will instantly skip to the next track, and then the next one, untill you realize that most of the CD is like that... this is normal I have come to find out... i have come to realize that this is getting the "verse-bridge-chourous-verse" style song you have come to love completly out of your head, its like the first time you heard spoken word poetry, and you realize that there is more than just rhyming poetry, this music is the same way. Stick with it though, i cannot stress it enough. Sit down and struggle through listening to the entire CD. there will be moments where you will want to turn it off and listen to "normal music" but dont. After you get done listening to it... give it a couple of days, and try it again. Most likely you will start to notice riffs and melodys and actual music.
Songs like "grave wisdom" and "T.F.W.O" will start to sound listenable now dont get me wrong, i still dont get what the artist is trying to say, and what he means half of the time, because its so random, and its not glaringly obvious what he is trying to say.

Dont get me wrong this CD isint for everyday listening, and I still think its the most F#&$!ed up CD i have ever heard. However its great for expanding your mind, and teaching you that there is other music out there. Even if the music is not your cup of tea (which is most people) its good to appreciate all different types of music.