Customer Reviews

Where Angels Fear to Tread

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mentallo & the Fixer are quite possibly one of the most innovative and talented bands in the industrial genre of the 90's. "Where Angels Fear to Tread" is their best album to date. Their songs are spiritual, emotional, and hauntingly beautiful. They provide some of the most complicated and intricate musicianship in the electronic genre. Anybody who is anybody recognizes this band as one of the best. If you prefere intellectual and emotional music, you will love this CD. You don't have to be a "rivethead " or a "goth" to enjoy this masterpiece, but if you like superficial and bland music, do not buy this CD. This CD is for adventerous music listeners with an open mind and it is not for the faint of heart. Gary and Dwayne Dassing are some of the best composers around.

This is the best album by the Brothers Dassing that I have heard yet, besides Continuum. It is an intense powerhouse of industrial beats and dark aural surreal imagery. These good ol' boys from Texas (of all places) really know how to make music that is just as enticing to dance to as it is to listen to on a pair of good headphones under the influence. Any sci-fi or cult movie fan would love this album, it has tastefully injected samples from Blade Runner (The gear-head film of choice), The Devils (a demonic cult film by crazed British director Ken Russell)and Demon Seed (a fascinating sci-fi cult flick from the late seventies). These films clearly served as an inspiration to the elaborate composition found in this work.

Up to and including Algorythm, this album is M&TF's masterpiece. It spans the entire range of human emotion. Aggressive, beautiful, and intelligent...

Quite frankly one of the most original and overlooked industrial dance bands of the 90's. I hear modern popular industrial dance and trance bands copping alot of the stuff M&tF did way back in 93/94 on 'Revelations23' and 'Where Angels Fear to Tread'. I credit this band highly as breathing life into a dying style, far above LeatherStrip, Wumpscut, and other such forced nonsense. While all of Mentallo's releases are worthwhile, Angels is quite possibly their most revered and accomplished work...and with good reason. 90% of the CD is pure bliss: Emotive, spontaneous, raw, driving, and highly personal. The music is largely electronic, and yet breathes and pulsates like an organic entity. If you like this type of music, buy with confidence...and then buy some of their other stuff, as each full length release of theirs is entirely different, unlike many other bands out there who rehash the same stuff over and over. Look for 'Love is the Law', the final release from Mentallo & the Fixer coming this Spring2000.

This Album is Classic...an exceptional Mentallo and the Fixer album. The album has many layers of sequencing that didn't follow trends but created there own sound for the electro industrial sound. Simply timeless...

BUT i think that's a testament to being eclectic. this album is nothing short of AMAZING. i wish it was duplicated by menatallo and the fixer or some other band, but i've never found anything coming close as close to goth/industrial/melodic done as well as this...especially in a full album. i wish all of their other albums sounded as good as this one. whenever a song from this album (particularly decomposed) plays, all of my friends (of all types and backgrounds) absolutely drool. get it!

Beautiful, just beautiful. An album with substance. Dark with passion. After listening to some of that mainstream kid crap like Avril or Goo-goo dolls (if you're ever at a six year old's birthday party or something) then this is exactly the type of good music you need to get that crap out of your head. A typical Mentallo & the Fixer album has to be listened to from beginning to end. Not the type of album you just pick out a couple of songs you like and skip the rest. Every song is essential in the flow of the album. Unlike many other groups, M&tF doesn't put out one song on an album that sticks out above the rest. That's not their style. Each album has it's own unique sound. Some may catch you right away, others may not really affect you. As on Algorythym I didn't really feel much from that one. It didn't really grasp me. Where Angels Fear to Tread on the other hand is probably my favorite.

If you're a fan of Wumpscut, Leather Strip, Imperative Reaction etc. then this may be just what you need. And yes, they are from Texas. Who would expect this type of music to come from there? But hey we got grapefruit, hot sauce and presidents from there, so who knows what we'll get next.

the state of Texas is probably the last place you'd expect Industrial music to spring forth from, considering how several Industrial acts hail from either Chicago (Ministry), Vancouver (Skinny Puppy), or any major city in Germany (practically every band on the Zoth Ommog or Metropolis label). but this Dallas-based duo consisting of brothers Gary and Dwayne Dassing demonstrates that you don't need to hail from Europe to write music that sounds as though the apocalypse is dawning. they have taken their influences of Gary Numan, OMD, and The Cars and created a monstrous concoction of aggressive beats on tracks like 'Decomposed' and 'Virtually Hopeless', but they have also created a wonderfully beautiful soundscape in the form of 'Battered States Of Euphoria.' of all their releases, this one seems to loosen up on the rage factor more than any other album. but Mentallo And The Fixer has no intention of ever going soft. and that fills me with euphoria.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this album. A few years ago, I heard Burnt Beyond Recognition, and did not enjoy it, even after many listens. But, Where Angels Fear to Tread is FANTASTIC. It is a rich and varied collection of music, some of it immediately and obviously beautiful (e.g., "Battered States of Euphoria"), some of it thunderously violent (e.g., the awesome "Bring to a Boil"). It is very melodic, but at the same time has heavy beats and complex noise arrangements. The recording is not as crisp as modern pop music, but that is not a significant problem. One song, Atom Smasher, is ruined by movie sample overuse. But, the bottom line is that this is excellent music, well worth owning.

This is the only cd by this band i own, but I suppose i will buy more. When I first listened to it I recognised the electronic sounds were wonderfull but I didn't love it at first. Now I think it's a very beautifully crafted album, which sounds agressive and delightful depending on the moment and the mood. The album begins with a rather chaotic instrumental song, 'Gargantua', which acts as a sort of intro. 'Decomposed' is one of the best songs here and settles the main characteristics of the whole album: distorted voice, not exactly agressive but menacing and cryptic, perfectly crafted electronics, industrial rhythms; There are many instrumental songs here, but they are not fillers at all: in fact, listening to 'Virtually Hopeless', 'Battered States of Euphoria' or 'Abominations unleashed' is a real pleasure, some of the best instrumental songs I've ever listened to. The other best songs are 'Sacrilege' (though I prefer another version not included in the cd, 'Angel of death' mix), 'Afterglow', 'Ruthless' or 'Atom Smasher'; The best of this album is that the electronics are wonderful and full of nuances but they don't sound too much cold; some guitars appear (mainly acoustic, not electric) and they add to the quality of the sound; The most agressive parts are in the song 'Bring to a Boil'; And the best of this cd is that i think this is a very good and ellegant way of how industrial (or whatever you may call it) should sound today; They are not Skinny Puppy but they are not too far behind, and in fact there're some similarities, even though Mentallo is more danceable and less experimental.