You've Been Zapped
When you were a kid, did you ever take the triple-dog dare of putting a 9-volt battery on your tongue? Remember the faint shock you received, not enough to send you into a coma, but enough to make you realize you've been zapped? Take that feeling, multiply it by 1,000 and you get a sense of what it's like to experience the jolt of 9voltRevolt.
After garnering critical praise a few years ago with their debut album Gravity, this Louisville band takes another step forward with How to Fall Apart. Their sound is heavy on industrial and electronica, with some guitar-driven rock sprinkled in for texture. The opening track, "Burn," is a good microcosm of what the band brings to the table: a buzzsaw sound-byte opening, punctuated by blistering drums and a warning siren. After a short pause to catch their breath, 9voltRevolt throws it down full throttle, blistering through the track with both recklessness and precision. This is more than music for die-hard insiders; its accessible industrial music to which you can actually sit and listen.
How to Fall Apart also includes a cover of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" (an improvement over the original) and two of the songs remixed by local electronica acts. 9voltRevolt is a band worthy of more attention outside of Louisville and How to Fall Apart is just the ticket to help them get it.
(Editor's Note: Sadly, 9voltRevolt revealed early last month that it had played its last show. But you can still catch up with the guys at www.9voltRevolt.com.)