Review by SilentScream213 for Red Harvest - Sick Transit Gloria Mundi (2002)

For sure one of the most interesting Industrial Metal acts that has been around since very near the beginning of the genre. Red Harvest have undergone a lot of evolution throughout their career, but along the way settled on an extreme style of Industrial Metal with generous Post-Metal influences and a dual focus on atmosphere and aggression.

Sick Transit Gloria Mundi open up with some of the best songs of the band’s entire career. “AEP” is an all-out aggressor that showcases the band’s strong ties to both Death and Black Metal, charging ahead with mechanical apocalypse. “Godflesh” is an extremely doomy and atmospheric track that showcase the opposite spectrum of their skills; crafting dense, building atmosphere into an all-encompassing sound that retains their mechanical edge. “Humanoia” is another shot of aggression and energy, slightly more contained than the overwhelming “AEP” but still packed with power, great drumming and mechanical riffs.

Unfortunately, after these opening songs, the album fails to reach such heights again. The rest of the album ranges from great to decent, constantly shifting gears between aggression and atmosphere, but never quite pulling either off as well as they did in the opening tracks.

The album is not quite a concept album, but contains many references to humanity being overtaken by machines, extending to the point humans themselves begin fusing with technology and computers until their humanity may as well be gone. It’s a fun take on the digital apocalypse and remains consistently grim and gloomy throughout.

Without a doubt, this is a quality album through and through, but the opening had me thinking this was about to be one of the best Industrial Metal albums I’ve ever heard. It’s great, but if they’d maintained such quality throughout, it’d be a masterpiece. At least it displays the band’s potential.