A stunted and weird sound prevails here, drawing mostly on industrial music and blending it with current glitchier trends. Where goofy processed vocals and puh-puh-puh beats predominate, the music lacks power, but when a trebly frenzy erupts, it gets it back. ?Situation Severe? is a completely apt title, as the song is little more than bump-snap-static until a pleasantly noisy, grinding coda barges in. ?Simply Possible? incorporates a distant nylon-string guitar, adding life and timbre to the arrangement; but ?Simply Impossible,? its companion piece, reflects all that doesn?t work here. A more swinging sound than the standard hard electro charge, yes, but it appears to be a smarmy spoof of Robert Palmer, a long-pass? satire to no apparent end. FM Einheit, late of Einsturzende Neubauten, guests on two songs: he lends a queasy charm to silicon chanty ?Beyond the Ocean,? but he can?t save ?The Rat? from sounding like the Beastie Boys at their worst. The album is rounded out by some fine, if restless, robot madrigals (?Blood Orange,? ?Maigouda?), and its inner Nitzer Ebb is finally unleashed on ?The Sauna King.? Going back to that furious well more often might have made this a more compelling, less confusing listen. 5/10 -- Sal Addays (9 June, 2005)