RUN LEVEL ZERO ARCTIC NOISE ALBUM MEMENTO MATERIA, ARTOFFACT RELEASE: JANUARY 30, 2008 (EUROPE) REVIEW: FEBRUARY 7, 2008

If you long for the more complex industrial sounds of Front Line Assembly and Skinny Puppy instead of the more straight forward four by four distortion fests that many artists produce these days, you can do worse than checking out Run Level Zero's latest effort. Taking a step up from previous albums production wise, all songs are made with minute precision and attention to detail. Perhaps because of the help of Oscar Holter from Necro Facility who has been doing production work on "Arctic Noise".

Comparisons with FLA are unavoidable, because this is extremely similar at times. "Black Cinder" even uses a chorus from a FLA track, although its name escapes me right now. This is good praise from me though, since I'm a huge FLA fan, but the fact is that Run Level Zero misses that certain something that makes the songs leap out of the speakers and grab hold of your brain. I can't remember much of them when I turn the CD player off.

So, it's not groundbreaking at all, but it's a solid album with quite a lot of variation. And it's damn heavy at that.

JOHAN CARLSSON

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