Institut - _Live Like Traitors, Die Like Traitors_
(Cold Meat Industry, 2003)
by: Alvin Wee (8 out of 10)
This second full length for these Swedes sees the husband-wife duo exploring new musical territory (for themselves), increasing the breadth and complexity of their textures while retaining the loose rhythmic structures that made their first album an instant classic. Familiar throbbing basslines are layered over with controlled blasts of white noise alternating with twisted junk-metal cacophony, as the combo of male and female ranting is distorted into satisfyingly hate-filled spasms. An impressive stylistic palette is explored throughout the album, all the while maintaining the project's allegiances to the traditional Euro-p.e. sound. "Pick It Up" sports a wall-of-white-noise, sheet-metal din akin to Grunt or Slogun, while "Move Over Once" fucks around in ultra high-pitched Sutcliffe Jugend territory (though never quite as intolerable). Other elements like classic Merzbow fluttering and narrow-band sweeping tones begin to creep their way in as well, making for a highly varied, intriguing listen throughout. I've always held the ultra old-school analog material on _Unto the Last Man_ to be Institut's best work, and they oblige here with occasional throwbacks like "Once A Man" or "Traitors". A great album overall, if not the most innovative in recent times.

[Jackie Smit: "This album is a forty minute long quarter-arsed attempt at ambient/noise that is so unspeakably poor that methinks I could very easily have inserted a guitar jack into my rectum, and ended up creating something of greater musical value. I consider myself very liberal and open-minded toward any form of extreme music, but this is, wiithout the slightest hint of exaggeration, the biggest waste of time I have ever had the misfortune of encountering in my entire life. The only thing that annoys me more than Institut's pathetic, laughable efforts at sounding 'dangerous' is the fact that I'll never get the forty minutes of my life back that I spent listening to this bullshit."]

(article published 31/10/2003)


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