TECHNO ANIMAL
The Brotherhood of the Bomb (Matador)
Reviewed by Jason Thornberry

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Distorted, lo-fi hip hop beats underneath dense piles of audio rubble: warped samples, hiss, the throbbing racket of a thousand less-than-thrilled hornets, and some very ready Mic Controllers. Fact is, this has been done before (albeit in a much less potent form). By these very same gentlemen. Justin Broadrick was sewing up glacial, elephantine ditties in Godflesh that harkened back to early ‘80’s Swans. Godflesh were a thing of monstrous beauty. If their Streetcleaner album had been a painting, it would have proven too enormous to hang. Broadrick was occupied, composing miniature symphonies to a decadent planet falling inside of its own caducity. His worldview was correspondent in the outfit Head of David, and also Napalm Death. Kevin Shields was off with his own creation (constructing God, rather than the other way around), and the pair would meet to flesh out ideas, which were spread across ten releases, since they began a decade ago on Shield’s Pathological label. His Pathological Compilation has the two working together, but in opposite camps, and is well worth the months you might spend searching for it.

Brotherhood, issue number eleven (counting their singles and EPs), finds them attaching some restless rhymes dripping with claustrophobia to several tracks here, as the Anti Pop Consortium, Vast Air (of Cannibal Ox), dälek, Toastie Taylor (New Flesh), El-P (Company Flow), Sonic Sum, and Rubberoom come together to re-examine hip-hop, and possibly create ‘Dark Hop’, though rumors of its existence already fill these moist surroundings.

From God, to Godflesh, to Techno Animal (which, were the band an actual living creature, would have been under enforced sequestration long ago). Martin and Broadrick have produced a legacy of music that redefines ‘monolithic’, and almost makes it seem silly when you hear someone else say "Oh, that’s really heavy, that new Metallica number!"

© 2001 - Jason Thornberry