Customer Reviews

Unicorns, Kittens & Shit

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Ok, maybe my subject line is a bit misleading, unless your family is a group of alien sex fiends from the planet 242.
The project Caustic churns out some bangin industrial noise, and in a time where alot of industrial/EBM album find themselves collecting dust on shelfs, this album which just skips the boring pretension that the genre finds itself soaked in, and proceeds to b*tch slap even the dullest goth child into dancing like a maniac.
Mastermind Matt Finale keeps what would be boring repeatativeness on some tracks quite interesting by using well placed samples and humor. You can tell that he has been a DJ for some time now and knows what he needs to keep the crowd moving, and listening at attention as well.
It seems almost an oxymoron to say that i'm excited to see Caustic mature, as maturity seems to be part of what the project is trying to fight against. But i'm very interested to see the next album and the direction it takes once Mr.Fanale gets more experience under his belt.

About the Band:
Caustic is the solo project of Madison Wisconsin goth / industrial DJ Matt Fanale. Fanale's long awaited debut album, "Unicorns..." illustrates that he knows what he is doing. In fact, he somehow managed to talk a number of established industrial artists into saying a few "kind" words about him on Unicorn's opening track "This Track Will Get Skipped A Lot". Caustic can jokingly be described as America's response to Patrick Steven's Hypnoskull: hardcore booze-powered depraved goofball-injected rhythmic electronic silliness.

About the Album:
The first track is a spoken word track, and despite Fanale's suggestion that the track will be skipped "a lot", it is one of the funniest samples of other artists trash-talking a single person that ironically you'll probably listen to the track often to laugh at Matt. I certainly do. The rest of the album is offers traditional powernoise with a few tracks that have a minimal old school industrial feel. A number of tracks are collaborations between Fanale and other artists, in which you can easily hear the blend of styles. For example, "I Gave the Blind Boy My Eyes" has a more creepy ritual sound that you'd associate with a ritual noise band such as Empusae.

Recommended Tracks:
- Drag Show Gone Wrong
- Give Me Damage
- Emmanuel Lewis Handjob
- Unicorns, Kittens, & ...
- Grind

Like most electronic music, the tracks are beat heavy and dance friendly. I love the entire album, but recommended a few of the above tracks. Most people I've talked to tend to really love "Give Me Damage", citing that it sounds like old good industrial. While I completely agree, "Drag Show Gone Wrong" is my favorite and reminds me of the more recent powernoise type of material coming from bands like Imminent or Noisex. It is dynamic, intense, and probably could be easily beat-mixed into other songs as well. Overall I appreciate the mix of sarcasm and rhythmic noise offered in the album - it gives me two things focus on and enjoy while listening.

The amazon.com warning about explicit lyrics should be self evident by looking at the track titles. The humor is pretty low brow, and I can honestly say Caustic makes me laugh. This is a good thing.

Similar Artists:
- Sona Eact / Hypnoskull / Tunnel
- Imminent
- C/A/T
- Noisex
- P.A.L
- S.i.n.a.
- Terrorfakt