CoC : Nod - The Story of the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf : Review

Nod - _The Story of the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf_
(Cold Meat Industry, 2003)
by: Alvin Wee (8.5 out of 10)

A very respectable (and anticipated) first album from this young project which turned heads on the _Nihil_ compiliation. The new circle of Swedish noisemakers are finally injecting some variety into the tired death industrial scene and Nod prove to be smart, saucy torchbearers of this ethic. The quirky title track kicks things off with the famous fairytale set to a Brighter Death Now backdrop. Things start picking up a little on the second track which opens with a delicate harp motif that soon succumbs to a rhythmic torrent of metallic electronics and vocal proclamations. Highly structured and relatively melodic, this is classic Swedish power industrial given a youthful kick. More strangeness ensues on "And" with female spoken word and a girl singing some sort of spacey, dissonant acid-jazz tune set to analogue dronings. Not quite as strange as it sounds, and extremely evocative indeed. The remaining tracks run the gamut from brooding death industrial to full-blown white noise assaults with distorted ranting, but always with a characteristic vigour and inventiveness that makes the album beg for repeated listening. Jaded listeners will find this tongue-in-cheek outing a very entertaining adventure indeed; not everything here works, but what does makes for extremely engaging listening.

(article published 31/10/2003)