Hypnoskull – The Manichean Consciousness (CD Album – Ant-Zen)
Genre/Influences: Industrial, industrial-techno, power-noise.
Background/Info: Hypnoskull (Patrick Stevens) celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2017 with the successful album “Die4.Generation”. One year later the Belgian sound terrorist is already back on track unleashing a work inspired by Pier Paolo Pasolini’s essay “Apology” (from 1968).
Content: It’s not evident to find back the inspiration of Patrick Stevens in his music, but without his ‘conceptual’ approach his music would be probably very different. “The Manichean Consciousness” gets back to the power-noise origins of the artist, but it also reflects his recent evolution in sound. The music is a perfect sonic cloning between power-noise and industrial-techno.
The tracklist moves quite progressively towards harder fields. The beginning cuts feature some epic arrangements while the shamanic rhythmic of the artist joins rapidly in. The last song “Der Neue Held” features a few German vocals.
+ + + : Hypnoskull moves on where his previous album stopped although I also experienced this new work as still being more inspired by the early work of the artist. It’s brutal, unpolished and sometimes simply straight forward. Most of the tracks are less sophisticated, but driven by irresistible hard-banging beats. But the main difference with ‘simply’ techno music is that you’ll notice cool, icy sounds in the background or bleeping sequences on a few cuts. I’ve a preference for “Distorted By Connotations” for its war-like atmosphere and “Kommando G Elser”, which has something inhibited.
– – – : This album is rather diversified in power and atmosphere, but I can’t say it’s the best I’ve heard from Hypnoskull. I personally prefer the previous work, which had something more ‘visionary’ and ‘innovative’.
Conclusion: “The Manichean Consciousness” is not the best album from Hypnoskull although it remains a fully enjoyable experience in modern industrial music and heavy industrial-techno.
Best songs: “Distorted By Connotations”, “Kommando G Elser”, “Bad Verses”, “Obfuscate Meanings”, “The Manichean Consciousness”, “Der Neue Weld”.
Rate: (7½).
Artist: www.facebook.com/therealhypnoskull
Label: www.ant–zen.com / www.facebook.com/antzen.official
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