Album Review: Distortion of Events "Congeners"

Distortion of Events
Congeners - LP
Reviewer: Reed Burnam
3 Stars (Out of 5)

Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, a number of underground electro-industrial artists were building on the previous decade’s worth of sonic experimentation charted out by foundational industrial acts such as Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, and Einsturzende Neubauten. Throughout the 80’s, groups such as Sleep Chamber, Controlled Bleeding, Clock DVA, Lustmord, SPK, etc, built on earlier electronic predilections and obsessions, mottled with liberal doses of noise, no wave, 80’s goth, punk DIY, and of course Metal Machine Music, and began releasing a range of harder, darker electro-industrial records steeped in alternating tangents of ideology, hedonism, dread, and mysticism. Their sounds and directions both mirrored and refracted the wasteland of mainline 80’s culture, forming trends that would eventually bleed over into more mainstream acceptance with bands like Ministry, Skinny Puppy, and Front 242.

So why dig up ancient history? Because a quick history lesson is what the uninitiated ear is gonna need to process exactly what’s bubbling to the surface of Distortion of Events’ newest record Congeners (2011, Zodarion Records). Congeners is the first full-length release from Patton, PA’s Michael Lubert (aka Distortion of Events). As a whole, Congeners is so steeped in earlier-period electro-industrial that it’s hard to believe it wasn’t delivered on cassette as part of a ‘zine mailer. If some crypto-ethnomusicologist was to dig up this record 100 years from now with no adequate dates attached, it would no doubt be erroneously thrust backwards in the history books to the late Reagan-era.

Everything present on Cogeners is in its rightfully retrofitted place, from the minimalist beats and the dated equipment tones, to the repetitive, meditative song structures, right down to the garbled, mostly incomprehensible vocals free-floating throughout the album’s electrical detritus and darkened horizons. Overall, the replicated sounds of earlier epochs herein fall somewhere in between Clock DVA’s “Hide” (from 1989’s Buried Dreams) and Sleep Chamber’s “El Topo”, from 1990’s Sleep, or Forever Hold Your Piece. However, before making snap judgments, it should be said that what Lubert is doing here needn’t be immediately discounted as simply derivative and lacking substantial originality. Though influences are visibly pinned on both sleeves, where Congeners succeeds is in system-merging itself into the depths of a sometimes menacing and never uninteresting musical subculture, painstakingly recreating and building upon a generation of earlier tangents while managing to imbue the project with a peek at Lubert’s own larger vision.

And what is that vision you might ask? According to Distortion of Event’s bio, there are themes running through Congeners concurrent with general arcs in neo-mysticism, self-exploration, internal decay, magickal/mystery traditions, and even paranormal activities, all ensconced in a sonic backdrop that wouldn’t be out of place in one of Philip K. Dick’s darker novels, pulsating out of some subterranean network where the youth sway in unison to a switchboard futuristic tribalism.

Clocking in at 8 tracks, Congeners never loses sight of a doom-laden thematic centrality. Individual tracks are frequently claustrophobic, humming with sharp electrical energy and coldly encapsulating in their propensity to remain unaltered in structure and thrust. Standing alone, each track is a small window into a bleak hard-wired potentiality, taken as a whole the entire thing becomes a sustained meditation on isolation and discomfort.

Album opener “Surgery” starts off with a crackling frequency signal that leads into a mid-tempo plodding, stuttering rhythm line underneath Lubert’s largely indecipherable horror-film vocals. It’s an effective opener, setting up for what’s to come with minimalist precision. Beats come harder, faster, and more abrasive in some tracks, such as with the whirring metal gears of “Deadface” and the dancefloor machinations of “Abandoned Path”, as well as with the distorted rave-up “Illusion”, perhaps grouped together due to their aural consistencies. Congeners really shines with tracks such as the cold efficiency of “Vade Mecum”, which manages to arrange the album’s main thematic elements into a darkly melodic track that both hums and pops. Other album standouts are “Heritage” and “Decaying for Eternity”, both of which quite effectively manifest the sparse, doomsday effect Lubert is going for throughout the record, as well as “Universal Plague”, which is perhaps the album’s finest example of effectively marrying anxiety-laden undercurrents to piston-precise beats and a vocal track that is both haunting and menacing in its alien aggression.

However, despite the efficacy of the historical reenactments taking place herein, one of the overriding detriments to Congeners may be the deliberately derivative construction of its nod to the past, which in 2011 comes off as quite dated. This is especially obvious given the quantum leap advances in synths, sequencers, and home recording technology over the past couple of decades, though it is understood that datedness is an aim here. Another issue is the extremely repetitive nature of each track, which typically outlines its main idea within the first :30 and then simply repeats it for upwards of 5 minutes. The effect, while at times hypnotic and effective, becomes annoying after repeat listens, and a little more variety or experimentation with texture and change could have added a lot more curb appeal here.

In all, a solid backwards-looking effort that hints at interesting things to come, but lacking a certain something to warrant many repeat listens, or to update an earlier electro-industrial sound into the new millennia.

Congeners is currently available online through CD Universe, CDBaby, and Itunes.