There is a Zen teaching that if you meet God on the road, you must kill him. "Kill God Ascend" is the 5th full-length album from Australian electro-industrial band SHIV-R (out the 18th of june).
In the decade since the band’s debut, SHIV-R have toured over 20 countries including festivals in Europe and North America, and put their releases at #1 on the DAC (German Alternative Charts) and top 10 of the GEWC (German Electronic Web Charts).
What the killing of God means to each listener will be a unique and personal revelation. In a world full of gatekeepers and figureheads whose only interest in you is to tell you what to do, illusions will need to be shed and those who profess to have all the answers will need to be confronted.
Kill God Ascend is clearly a dancefloor filler: great beats and vocals that remind me a bit of Funker Vogt. The electro/Industrial approach combined with the sharp guitars works well! Borne From Hate goes for full speed aggression and just sounds perfect! It’s a killer track! And yet we are only at song number 2! Spark brings in a more melodic side of the band and cleaner vocals. The music comes close to electro/techno. It’s another side of this band, but it’s cool and great too! Promises of Armageddon builds up slowly and sounds pretty dark (lyrics are almost what happens during a co-ops game). I know Pete plays a lot of video games, so that could be the good view on it (hence he even wrote the music for a soundtrack very recently). Blue Turns to Black sounds slower and goes more into the emotional direction with very clean vocals and a floating musical touch. Empire goes back to the more hacking sound that got us hooked on bands like Funker Vogt. It might also become a hit on stage! Stone and Skin mixes techno with break beats and cool vocals. I can see them on stage and some strobe lights giving that strong white vibe. It’s a very melodic song! World Ends Tonight sounds a bit like electro hip-hop could sound like if it would exist. I hear also some industrial minded influences. It’s my least favourite track on this album, but maybe’s it’s because I expected too much from it after reading the title? Valley of Death comes to closest to a low-tempo electro rock track. Last song of the album is Turpentine: a weird industrial minded track that starts very slow, turns into the more experimental Nine Inch Nails direction.
Pete Crane and Ben Bulig really worked hard on this album and that resulted in an album rich of variation. Thus a lot of people will find at least some track very attractive and I’m sure it will not be always the same tracks. I dropped my favourites ones and now it’s all up to you and maybe I will finally be able to meet Pete one day and maybe even in 2022 when the craziness of this COVID-19 era is gone! Good luck folks and stay safe and healthy!
Tracklisting
Europe! You can order our new CD "Kill God Ascend" now directly from the awesome retailers POPoNAUT and Braincorp. Webshop. Links below!
http://www.poponaut.de/shiv-kill-ascend-p-20462.html
http://www.braincorp.dk/index.php?n=catalogue&s=show...
