Three years after their great debut album “Panacea” the American – Australian duo featuring Rob Early (Retrogramme) and Simeon Fitzpatrick (Project K11) is back on track unleashing the new opus “Humanicide”. The work features nine new songs plus five remixes. The band again worked with some guest singers. Roy Retrofit (Red This Ever), Alicia May, Rebekah Feng and Sarah Myers (Fake Boyfriend) contributed to this work.
“Humanicide” moved on where “Panacea” stopped; an album featuring intelligent and sophisticated EBM. It clearly reminds me of Frontline Assembly and Skinny Puppy, which I think rather sounds as references to be compared to. The different singers inject their proper touch, intonation and passion to the work. The remixes were accomplished by Psy’Aviah, Sebastian Komor, C1TZN.X, Leather Strip and Red This Ever.
11Grams doesn’t sound as the most accessible EBM format, but they let us discover a different kind of ‘body music’; music that has been composed with technical knowledge and certain passion to create great sound treatments. The album sounds maybe a bit less powerful than its predecessor, but it has been empowered with poignant atmospheres created by cool synth sounds. Some passages are clearly old-school driven and even space-like. There’s a great diversity and yet still a balance between the different singers. The title song for sure is an attention grabber, but I definitely prefer the “Static Noises 2.0” revealing impressive writing skills of 11Grams. Among the remixes I especially recommend listening to “Ice Man” remixed in a powerful way by Sebastian Komor and “Weaponized”, which is another powerful outburst, remixed by Leather Strip.
I don’t see real minor points about this new work, 11Grams simply confirming their natural talent to compose futuristic EBM, but I just regret this kind of band never gets the deserved recognition. “Humanicide” confirms the great work revealed at the “Panacea”-album; this is styled EBM!