Before industrial metal brought attention and explosive popularity to the genre for a few years in the 1990’s with bands like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry, the once abstract and wildly experimental industrial genre underwent significant evolution and mutation in the 1980’s. Channeling the punk- and anti-music spirited Industrial Records era of the 70’s (Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire), electro industrial developed into a style that mixed the formlessness of the former with the danceable accessibility of EBM bands like DAF, Die Krupps and more distantly Kraftwerk, albeit with a much more confrontational edge. The most notable electro industrial bands, Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly (hereafter abbreviated as FLA), are entwined as they not only stood out with a slew of influential albums during the 80’s, they also shared members. Bill Leeb (Wilhelm Anton Leeb), the founder of FLA, was a part of Skinny Puppy as they were developing their Remission demo EP, and largely one of the reasons cEvin Key (Kevin William Crompton) developed an interest for harsher soundscapes. As the confrontational nature of Skinny Puppy‘s frontman Nivek Ogre (Kevin Graham Ogivie) took over the main direction of the band, Leeb left and did not cross paths with the other members in the studio until tension grew in Skinny Puppy around the end of the 80’s. Landing in the middle of some of both the bands’ most caustic works then, Cyberaktif was created as a side-project featuring Bill Leeb, cEvin Key and the other significant Skinny Puppy-member Dwayne Goettel.
The one and only album released by Cyberaktif, Tenebrae Vision, carried traces of both bands: it had the danceable grooves and malicious AI-feel of Front Line Assembly and the barely controlled stream of consciousness drug haze of Skinny Puppy. While it did not measure up to the main bands’ classic output, it’s a worthwhile industrial album even today. After folding with this only release, fast forward 33 years and we have seen the end of Skinny Puppy after a final tour. Sophomore Cyberaktif album eNdgame arrives with a ton of history resting on its shoulders, with some of its songs beginning life as a Skinny Puppy album that never saw release. As Tenebrae Vision was spawned from the darkness coursing through classic albums like Rabies and Caustic Grip, eNdgame is also a reflection of the post-reunion sound of Skinny Puppy (notably hanDover) and the developments in sound FLA underwent in the 00’s and 10’s. What this means for the album is that it moves in the more ethereal landscapes of FLA albums Epitaph and Civilization. Songs like “New World Awaits” have tightly revolving bass loops that evoke cEvin Key‘s Download project, “Locked Away” features a great danceable groove and “Broken Through Time” both bands’ musical vocabularies in a nice melodic hook.
Unfortunately, most of eNdgame errs on the less successful side of Front Line Assembly‘s sound. With Goettel having passed away in the 90’s and Leeb‘s longtime FLA collaborator Rhys Fullber joining this release, the production tends towards the clean and easily digestible. In particular, songs like “You Don’t Need to See” displays that Leeb and co. are stuck in a rut with the same old song structures and lyric key words that are past their expiration date. It is hard to expect more from musicians that have been in the game for this long and that are this prolific. But my enthusiasm at what could have been a chance to create something new and novel is dampened by listening to something that feels like an uninspired FLA album in disguise. I truly hope this whimper of an album isn’t this project’s true endgame, as there should be much more potential when two genre giants collide.
