From: cwe34361@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (cE!)
Subject: Circle of Dust - what is it? (Review)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 14:23:38 GMT

OK, so the big question is:  is Circle of Dust metal, or is it industrial?

Well, gee, I can't really get into metal at all, so I guess I'd better say it's 
industrial (whoops, I guess I just bought the Randy Rose disc...I'd better
think this over again).

Enough classification.  I'll start off by saying that I don't really feel like
categorizing Circle of Dust.  But...

When I first saw the ads, I thought, "Wow!  A Christian Front Line Assembly!
Cool!"  When I saw their booth at Cornerstone, I thought, "Wow!  Check out
the t-shirts!  Cool!" (and bought one).  When I heard some of the album at
the Cornerstone party, I thought "Wow!  This is really heavy!  Cool!"  When
I saw some of their show at Cornerstone, I thought, "Wow!  They use lots of
guitars live, but the album must be different.  Cool!" When I finally got the
CD after weeks of waiting, I thought,
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!"
Because actually, there are a lot of guitars.  And this isn't just Ministry-
style trash-core sampled guitar, this is real, live, HEAVY METAL GUITAR
PLAYING, folks.  And it has real, heavy metal-style vocals, too.  Ack.

So at first I was just a little dissapointed.

But now, after listening to it for about a month, this is what I think:
Circle of Dust has a really original style, and I like it (mostly)!  I must
admit, it sounds like some mutant "What If Suicidal Tendencies Used Samplers?"
project, mostly because of Scott's vocal style.  The guitar riffs are all very
metal.  But there are a lot of samples, and I guess all of the drums are
programmed.  The music definitely has an industrial slant; in fact, I'd really
like to hear a mix of this without any guitars at all, because the programming
is cool.  Often, a song will start with a way-neato industrial groove, and then
the guitar will come in and screw it up (in my opinion).  I don't really like
Scott's vocal style.  I would try a more distorted, toneless growl.  But hey,
that's part of what makes this album original.  One factor that has affected my
listening pleasure has actually been what sort of stereo I was listening to it
on.  It seems like different systems emphasize different parts of the mix a lot
more than on other albums I own.  In my car, the mix seemed overly guitar-
heavy.  At my friend's house, it seemed quite keyboard-heavy.  I think that's 
an interesting effect.  Or maybe it's all in my head.  I don't know.  But try
listening to it on different systems, and different parts may stand out.  The
music is complex--the songwriting is good, I think.  The samples complement the
music.

So maybe it's cyber-metal, or something.  I don't care, really.  But those who
don't like CoD at first should give it a few more listens.  It really grew on
me.  Metal fans will like it, I think, and industrial fans might learn to 
appreciate it.  This is a band with varied influences that doesn't rip off of
anybody.  Go buy it, even though it is on R.E.X.

christian's globalRATINGsystem:  29861 points out of x possible
 

christian E!
christian-e@uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: rec.music.christian