Skinny Puppy - Weapon (2013)

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Skinny Puppy - Weapon (2013)

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In nearly three decades, Skinny Puppy has established itself as a groundbreaking, innovative voice in the world of electronic music. The band is always fearless in both its musical experimentation and voicing a stance on the issues of our times, and the new album Weapon is no exception.

This stunning new album stands as a commentary on that which it is named after, or more specifically, to the concurrent glorification of the gun culture and simultaneous horror at the devastation the gun can cause. Given this view, the pop undertones of the album s opening wornin and the compelling counterpoint of the vocals and lyrics seem to reflect our mass media homogenization of an instrument of death into an entertainment centerpiece. illisiT focuses on the authoritarian control applied to us under the guise of protecting us from the criminal element. Perhaps the classic Skinny Puppy sounds evident in the song solvent are a nod to not only the past, but to a bleak Orwellian future. Are we facing a 1984 dystopia filtered through a Kafkaesque lens? A world where the illusion of power given to the private citizen afforded ownership of a weapon distracts them from the Big Brother drones that watch overhead?

Hitting the speakers with an incredibly dense recording of zombie sequencers going haywire, Skinny Puppy's 2013 effort The Weapon is an instantly recognizable return to form for the veteran electro-industrial group, and a sure about-face from the film-worthy, large-landscape music the group has released since the millennium turned. Still, the album is filled with current events and musical progress, the former represented by the album's disgust with 2013's gun culture, hence the album's title. The latter is represented by a whole mess of little touches, spanning from the sublime (check the breakbeat of "saLvo" for something equally ominous and funky) to the ridiculous (lead singer Ogre stuns with an almost-rap during "Wornin'," spitting "We'll make you feel the Jim Jones vibe" in a rare blast of knowingly hip). The music is busy, kinetic, attractive, and stimulating in the spirit of the group's golden age and the songwriting is in top form, giving up more singalong choruses than ever before, all of them caked and covered with messages of peace, disgust, and the dismantling of Babylon. This is a vicious blow against the empire, and an electro-industrial winner released when few were asking for one, but most of all, The Weapon is the welcome resurrection of that classic Skinny Puppy album, coming just as the band enters its 30th year of existence.

Review by David Jeffries, Allmusic.com

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Skinny Puppy - Weapon (2013)

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Skinny Puppy - Weapon (2013)

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Skinny Puppy - Weapon (2013)

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