Refuse To Die * Collection Of Agnostic Flies (cd 2008 the eastern front)
It seems that this is my first encounter with Refuse To Die, even though they have released material since 1996. However the bandname suggests a martial industrial project, the cover of this album is a better pointer of the style: weird and ‘collagic’. Most tracks are sound-collages, either or not with an industrial tone, sometimes a bit soundscapish, sometimes more industrial/noisy. It is all pretty strange stuff, so do not be surprised to get a little bit of cabaret as bonus. An album full of odd ideas without much of a definate style is of course a ‘dangerous’ thing to do. I can hear the humour in some tracks, some tracks are nice to listen to, but there is also a totally awfull track called “Who Are The Brain Police” and there are things that simply don’t ‘work for me’. I doubt that I will play a cd like this very often. Perhaps I should put a few tracks on the mp3 compilations that I play in my car, but 45 minutes of such weird stuff…? Of course you might actually enjoy crazy industrial sound collages, so just visit the band’s website to listen to some tracks and see if this is an album for you.
Links: Refuse To Die, The Eastern Front
This rather old release was the second project on Galakthorrö not being mr. and mrs. Arafna themselves. Galakthorrö seems to use the following terms to describe their releases: “angstpop”, “Kalte Welle” and “Intensiv Elektronik”. About the first term, I recently wrote 
For their hundreth release The Old Europa Café label has released a 7-cd compilation with a track of each band and project they have been involved in during the years. However looking around the internet it seems like the bands are featured alphabetically, this is not the case, the cds are ordered somewhat thematically / according to style. “Somewhat” I say, since it is not completely that there are industrial and folk cds, there is some overlap. That is only for the better, the compiler of the cds has a rather good ear for things. In the beginning I had the idea that there are alternally more industrial and more folky cds, but this is not entirely true. The compilation opens with a cd with mostly not too extreme noise, a nice cd. Then follows a cd with more (neo)folky music, but not the too typical sounds of a compilation that I reviewed a few days ago. Then we have cds with power electronics and the extreme, chaotic style that isn’t mine, but also more old industrial things, strange experimental soundscape music and more of an old neofolk cd that I find awfull (Ain Soph, that sort of bands). Having heard the whole thing, my temporary conclusion is that the first cds are the most interesting and towards the end are some cds that I will probably never play. I think that four out of seven cds are enough of my taste to put in the player every now and then, so the “price/quality balance” is not that bad.