Axis of Perdition, The - Deleted Scenes From the Transition Hospital (2005)^{Release ID: 3246}

The Hospital Waiting Room

When this album was pitched to me as a Silent Hill inspired atmospheric industrial album, my ears perked up, thinking that it had a lot of potential to be very unique and creepy. Industrial Metal is normally dark and grinding to begin with, so adding even more horror elements seems like a very interesting proposition that I was inclined to check out. However after wading through 55 minutes of samey atmospheric sections and washed out Industrial Black Metal riffing, I was left bored out of my skull and not really frightened at all.

At its core Deleted Scenes From The Transition Hospital is an avant-garde and atmospheric experience, with a lot of effort put into grating sound effects and slow building, aimless riffs that begin and end at random just to insert more creepy talking, water or metal sound effects, or for some reason jazz piano on "Pendulum Prey (Second Incarceration)". Judging by the title and album art I was ready for this album to bring out some very frightening sounds and effects to create the imagery needed to make an album like this work, but it never really happened. Most of the effects are shown off during the first and second track and reused from there, whether it's the background screaming or talking, the grind of some sort of machinery, the splashing of water in a sink or tub, or the sounds of what I presume to be a broken wheelchair being pushed down some stairs. I tried my hardest to get sucked into the atmosphere they were presenting, but it never happened, and that's a death sentence for an album like this.

The actual Metal sections that dot the album are serviceable, with the guitars, vocals, and bass having a very washed out sound that sits under the very mechanical and programmed drums, which I'm guessing is to add a bit more Industrial flair to their sound. While the riffs are dark and creepy, I failed to have any real interest in them after "Entangled In Mannequin Limbs", since it felt like the same old thing over and over. The vocals and spoken word are remarkably well done though; they were easily the creepiest part of this album and the harsh growls fit in to the mix and type of production they were going for perfectly. There are a few memorable and heavy hitting riffs in "Entangled..." and the fuzzed out climax of "Deleted Scenes II:", but if you're looking for variety you've come to the wrong place.

The unfortunate thing about projects like these is that if the atmosphere doesn't click with the listener, then it's going to be very rough no matter what you try and do, and The Axis Of Perdition just missed the mark for me on this one. I was never really engrossed in the horror they tried to present, never felt particularly uneasy, and it never presented me a clear picture of what I should be getting out of this album. It's repetitive in all the wrong ways, with creepy sound effects being overused and comparable metal riffs popping up here or there to remind you that they play Black Industrial Metal sometimes. I don't think any of the music is particularly bad, but as a package I was incredibly bored and uninterested by it. It's pretty obvious that they wanted to create an atmospheric experience and just threw some dark metal riffs in there to break it up, but it just felt so aimless and dull nevertheless.