translated in english here
: Evil Dr. Smith: Just like the name suggests, Thee Malodoror Kollective isn't your ordinary baker's dozen band. What started out as progressive semi-black metal industrial band on 'New Era Viral Order', evolves with 'A Clockwork Highway' quite quickly into a band that prefers to hang out in the movies instead of a Hard Rock CafÈ. On this new album they have definitely left the pub, sold their metal cd collection for a huge pile of DVD movies, cut their hair and trade their denim 'n' leather for decent suits. But mind you, don't think this band has become a bunch of soft pussies. Maybe the decibel terror decreased, but certainly not its musical accessibility. Man, these guys do some crazy things on this album!
I do think it's better to review this album by movie critics, instead of music journalists. This album sounds like you're zapping through at least twenty movie channels with art house, horror and vague B-movies. Especially the first half of the album sounds like an exploded fragmentation bomb at a Horror Film Festival. It cost a lot of time and spins to understand the music, also because the songs started as a chaotic carrousel of sound, music and movie samples and take several minutes to unveil the musical direction. Opening song 'Exile' sounds something like a Morricone's spaghetti western ballad, played by Vangelis and Pink Floyd. The next song 'Microphones & Flies' is more frivolous swing with a freakshow twist, which halfway is changed into a scene from a torture chamber with lots of handcuffs, spikes and other iron tools. 'Zombie Children' starts with an ultra cool groove that has got a bit of a Kyuss/35007 atmosphere (call it an intergalactic desert riff in the seventh dimension, if you like), interrupted by a purposely-false singing sleazerock dude with a fat Italian accent, and whereby the last minute of the song is totally dedicated to the melody of Ben E. King's 'Stan By Me', accompanied by yet another vague movie sample.
The second part of the album is a little more accessible and less obsessively drowned in a cinematographic framework. Like the eleven minutes of 'The Night Mr. Clenchman Dies', which sounds like Joy Division doing a Swans song in a post-hardcore style like Cult Of Luna (and including a reprise of that cool riff from 'Zombie Children'). The results are enigmatically thrilling and the only song where the (metal) guitar is a dominant part of the song. The first part of the following triptych 'Pilot' contains jazzy piano, female vocals and a penetrating, incensed atmosphere that makes it like the Dresden Dolls doing a Portishead cover. The second part sounds like a blaxploitation movie directed by Rob Zombie and the last part is straight stolen from a Warp Records album. The album closes with the short 'A Gasoline Hero', a song that also contains a videoclip that's on the enhanced section of this album. An industrial sort of video (made by Allessandro Pacciani) that looks like a combination between Tool, the movie Pi and the male torsos from Leni Riefenstahl's 'Triumph Des Willens', directed by H.R. Giger. Vocals aren't the main instrument on this album, but if you hear them, it's always done by someone, or something else.
They call themselves an experimental comedy jam band, a "robots orchestra playing the blues". Well, if you change the blues part into a soundtrack for film noir, robots into the art collective Cabaret Voltaire (not the band) and orchestra into a jazzrock ensemble with a preference for Manes, Ulver and Cinematic Orchestra, then I agree with their definition. Due to the fragmented, eclectic character the album is more fascinating and intriguing than big and impressive. But it does contain some exhilarating passages. Oh well, with such a band name, such album sleeve (url=http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1217063/]nice babe[/url], horrible design) and operating from Italy on an obscure Italian avantgard-metal label, this band is still doomed to an insignificant footnote in the music annals. Therefore I hope movie freak Mike Patton and his label Ipecac will notice this band, giving the band a chance for a bigger audience.
Evil Dr. Smith diagnoses: 80/100 (details)
http://www.myspace.com/jailhousedog
