Control – “The Strong Enslave”/”Your Fate”/”It’s Come to This”

Control is the Power Electronics equivalent of the $185 million Hollywood blockbuster – his effects are writ huge, with sweeping, grandiose gestures splashed over widescreen canvases. Most P.E. albums (especially those of the earliest vintage) are more personal in effect - one man, one mic, one set of feedback. The electronics of yore sounded like old but sharpened razors pulled from dirty raincoats.

Control is sleeker and colder, a thoroughly modern mega-killer, with whirling knives extending from multiple hands, inflicting absurd amounts of violence on you and everyone you know. This is the sound of something far beyond the Travis Bickle handmade spring-loaded gun holster, something more like a human/debris hybrid out of “Tetsuo: The Iron Man” or maybe even the ending of “Akira,” with swollen, mutated flesh mating with metals and fluids and every manner of corrosive compoud. There are emotions in there, but they’re expressed only by wordless howls of pain and revenge.

Sorry to go all cyberpunk on you there, but really, it’s hard to listen to Control and not think of something very futuristic. His is a shiny and digital sound, borne of complex sound-making equipment and controlled with innature technical knowledge and nuance. The crisp digitalities don’t always allow sharp corners to poke out of the speakers in the manner of something like, say, Buchenwald, but this minor shortcoming is more than made up for in micro-detail, compositional progression, and most of all, room-filling sonic density.

Opening track, “The Strong Enslave,” is treasonous and upsetting enough to earn its title, but the vocal attack is kind of one-dimensional. The cadence seems exactly the same every time, and without any variations, you begin to feel like you’re driving in circles past the same gibbering streetcorner preacher over and over again. It’s still noteworthy for the lighter-than-normal vocal processing, which gives you a rare glimpse into Control’s CON-DOM-esque vocal style – declarative rather than coercive.

Second track is played for atmospherics. It starts out very strong, a simple looped figure ascending with some jack-boot stomping and harsh factory steam. After two minutes, “Your Fate” adds a long spoken sample treated with heavy reverb, something that’s been done on other Control albums, but usually only in album intros or segues (the Misanthrope CD on L. White had something like this). The reverb makes this sample sound uncomfortably like the “Adrenochrome” sequence in Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, were Nixon’s “sacrifice” speech is reverbed and looped as a audio signpost for the descent into drug-fueled madness. It’s similarly a bit humorous here, which I bet is not the intended reaction. Very close listening (or a good pair of headphones) reveals a fantastically processed vocal track, low and animalistic, like a bear caged and encased in 10 layers of other bears’ skins, all smothered fury and full-body hatred. If the sample were removed, this would be my easy favorite on this side.

“It’s Come to This” cashes the check, though….vocal processing lifts a bit once again, and the very European-styled declamations come through with a lot of strength. In a very visual way, this sounds like armies of other-worldly killing machines sweeping the planet, spreading fire and agony over the land, while a 6,000 ft. tall overlord stands on every horizon the world over and explains the horror that is the next 150 years of humanity. There’s a strong, mournful undertone mixed with ruthlessly controlled noise sophistication. Always modern, always killing, always symphonically painful.

That this praise is being heaped on material that isn’t the best Control I’ve heard should hopefully persuade you to not only gobble this platter up, but also to check out some more titles which up the stakes even more. I recommend Natural Selection (Eibon), World of Lies (Freak Animal) or the self-titled debut (Frozen Empire Media).