Mortiis – Some Kind of Heroin
Earache – B000NJLYQ2 – 16th April 2007
By Anna Novitzky
Trolls are nightmare creatures, dreamt up by the storytellers of yore to strike terror into the hearts of children, and teach caution of the unknown. You expect to find them under bridges, in dark caves and forests, and in the deepest reaches of the human psyche. You don’t expect to find them in the studio recording dance remixes of their previous industrial rock albums – but that is where Mortiis has been.
Actually, that’s not quite true. The trollish one has, in fact, cast off the shackles of his prosthetic nose and embarked upon a new, and less rubbery, professional era. Marking this is his new album, Some Kind of Heroin, comprising remixes of his 2005 album, The Grudge. It’s a hypnotically trancey reimagining of an album which was declared a cultural artefact by the Norwegian government, retaining the original’s industrial feel with a distinctly neon glowsticks-and-hair-falls touch – like Nine Inch Nails on ecstasy. With remixes from such EBM and ambient luminaries as Funker Vogt, Velvet Acid Christ and Gothminster, to name but a few, it’s an interesting take on a well-loved record, but it falls into the repetitive trap of the genre – the thudding beats and hoarse vocals run together, resulting in a monotonous experience for those not ingesting mind-altering chemicals.
It’s an note-worthy experiement, but ultimately about six tracks too long – we get the point, we don’t need it hammered home. For a long night of robot-dancing under the strobes, though, it’s the perfect fit – we’ve come a long way from the mountains of darkest Scandinavia.
Official Earache Website
Official Mortiis Website
Earache – B000NJLYQ2 – 16th April 2007
By Anna Novitzky
Trolls are nightmare creatures, dreamt up by the storytellers of yore to strike terror into the hearts of children, and teach caution of the unknown. You expect to find them under bridges, in dark caves and forests, and in the deepest reaches of the human psyche. You don’t expect to find them in the studio recording dance remixes of their previous industrial rock albums – but that is where Mortiis has been.
Actually, that’s not quite true. The trollish one has, in fact, cast off the shackles of his prosthetic nose and embarked upon a new, and less rubbery, professional era. Marking this is his new album, Some Kind of Heroin, comprising remixes of his 2005 album, The Grudge. It’s a hypnotically trancey reimagining of an album which was declared a cultural artefact by the Norwegian government, retaining the original’s industrial feel with a distinctly neon glowsticks-and-hair-falls touch – like Nine Inch Nails on ecstasy. With remixes from such EBM and ambient luminaries as Funker Vogt, Velvet Acid Christ and Gothminster, to name but a few, it’s an interesting take on a well-loved record, but it falls into the repetitive trap of the genre – the thudding beats and hoarse vocals run together, resulting in a monotonous experience for those not ingesting mind-altering chemicals.
It’s an note-worthy experiement, but ultimately about six tracks too long – we get the point, we don’t need it hammered home. For a long night of robot-dancing under the strobes, though, it’s the perfect fit – we’ve come a long way from the mountains of darkest Scandinavia.
Official Earache Website
Official Mortiis Website
