X-FUSION THORN IN MY FLESH ALBUM SCANNER RELEASE: MARCH 4, 2011 REVIEW: MAY 23, 2011

My first journey into the musical world of X-Fusion was through a live show with Jan L's side project Noisuf-X a couple of years ago in Stockholm. I quite liked it, just starting to find my way in the powernoise genre. The main project is however X-Fusion which is more in the aggrotech style. This is his seventh album since the debut in 2003. First of all, I must confess that aggrotech isn't usually my cup of tea. However, this album surprises me - let me explain how.

The main problem for me with the aggrotech genre is that far too often it just isn't very good music. They do however often hide this behind cool graphics, lots of distortion and of course tons and tons of energy. X-Fusion doesn't fall into this trap and manage to make something that is good, cool and will work wonders in the clubs. In fact, in this case it is taken one step further with some pop elements. Tracks like "Holy Grail" and the title track "Thorn in my Flesh" shows a will to experiment and advance that doesn't show too often in this genre. As a whole the album has too many filler tracks, but there is good stuff to be found in between.

All in all this is a pretty good album that brings the will to evolve to a genre that I somehow had lost hope in. I will continue to follow the works of X-Fusion and hope to find more of this in the future.

TOBIAS ELIASSON