Tactical

When I heard that that was a new album of my favorite eco-anarchists, I was delighted. When it seemed that (inspite of the latest albums that I got) it even concerned new material, I was more than happy. So after a too long wait, I got this strange-size white package (a little bigger than a 7″) with minimal design on four flaps with a cd in the middle. “Everything Is One” opens with the typical Militia sound: minimal, repetative sounds with drumming on all kinds of (steel) objects. The first track contains vocals, which unfortunately is not the case with most of the rest of the tracks. New elements on this album are violins, some other instruments and female vocals. I had to play the album a few times before I got into it. Still the style is not new if you know Militia, but the albums seems less energetic and more experimental, but after a few rounds in my player, the last remark does not go for as many tracks as it seemed on first hand. I think this album has to grow (I don’t often have that) whereas ‘The Black Flag Hoisted” captured me immediately. Funny that a similar style can have two such different effects.

Well well, here we have a very interesting industrial release. It comes in some kind of box, which after opening proves to be a bit too weak for the purpose, but the main reason for the box is that it contains some kind of flag with the logo. Further there is a poster and two cds in promo-like carboards.
According to the poster, this is the third release in the “Statement Trilogy”. I only heard about a previous mcd and I haven’t heard anything else from this Belgian act. They do appear on a few compilations though.
“The Black Flag Hoisted” consists of two cds which both last for about an hour. The music on these cds is very varried. The first cds mostly has relatively short tracks and it seems that there have been a lot of collaborations with other industrial pioneers for that disc. The second cd has longer tracks. The industrial is mostly somehow tranquil with ‘triballic’ drumming and samples of strange sounds or spoken word in all kinds of languages, such as Russian (?), French, German, Dutch, English, etc. Sometimes the band lives up to their name and you can hear marchdrums, at other times you hear noise, dark industrial, dark ambient and sometimes even dance-like rhythms. Most of it is done really well, and even though the style is different per track, “The Black Flag Hoisted” doesn’t sound like a mishmesh of styles thrown together for the heck of it. Sometimes tranquil, sometimes a little harder and once in a while with a bit of a punk-attitude with shouting statements over a darkambient background. Very well done!