Charlie Drown: Pretty Machine Gun CD Review

Empress Of The Extreme...Charlie Drown!!



The Assault Continues...

My mind had taken the most brutal of beatings but to be asked to endure this savagery was another thing altogether. This time, Captain K. Himself (aka Sascha Konietzko to laymen) and KMFDM put their talents into this melting pot of evil most vicious.

This music nearly felt like home to me. This time, there was a relentlessness about it, the guitars drove railroad spikes into my frontal lobe. The drums pounded my synapses to mush. The basslines rattled my cerebellum into oblivion, Charlie's voice screamed her delightfully pissed-off rage at me and all the while, Captain K. was at his best digitally stripping my soul away and encasing my heart in the coldest of onyx.

Silent Rizing was a great effort. The entire band blasted out ripping and shredding with that one but Pretty Machine Gun never runs out of ammo. In fact, this Machine Gun is so Pretty that The Brady Bill is letting it slip from it's grasp.

There seems to be less maturity in lyrical content. Not only has the "Fuck You" value of it shot through the roof but a taunting "And Die Too" quality comes out. Like a nuclear slap to the face and a radioactive middle finger, this album can tell you only one thing with total certainty...Turn It Off At Your Own Risk.

Songs like "Time To Bleed" overshadow the previous effort, making it seem as only toes were merely testing the water. This album said, "Fuck Testing Shit...Dive Motherfucker!"

And Dive You Shall! More songs offer the oblivion with astounding proportions and, once again prove that only the strong of mind, will and sanity (or lack thereof) need apply.

If you're searching for existentialism, form and function in reality, a sense of snobbery in an art form. You're going to get dead and quickly so.

"Toothpick," "Painkiller Lullabye," "Lithium Nephalim" and "Bereft" offer you nothing more than a look into the most horrid of us all. Forced to see yourself in this manner there's only one conclusion at the album's violent crescendo, That This Album Was Destined To Be Among Your Collection.

Charlie abruptly shifts gears for the last song "Drown" though, giving you what you almost weren't expecting...her singing ability. It shines through on this last song, not offering respite from the violence you just suffered, but bringing you a sense of despair and longing at it's end...for more.

Lord Genocyde's Bottom Line: If you even remotely liked Silent Rizing then Pretty Machine Gun is a must for any industrialite or fan of the most edgy and cutting-edge rock music out there. This Band Does Not Sleep...They Wait. Don't be a pussy, add this one to your collection too.