16VOLT
LETDOWNCRUSH

Three years is a short time for any band to come into its own. Consider all the time to rehearse and perform any and every gig available, gaining new fans and building an audience, all the while honing the craft and creating a sound that can easily be identified and distinguishable from the myriad of other like-minded groups striving to get noticed; for any band to last even one year is quite a feat, let alone to actually produce an album. Nevertheless, in three short years, 16volt had become a major player in the industrial music underground. Joining in the ranks of the guitar-heavy electronic juggernaut that had come to be known as coldwave, Eric Powell and his cohorts were tearing up the dance floors and the mosh pits with two albums under their belts.

The band's sophomore album, Skin was already a much leaner and far more aggressive affair than the Wisdom debut. The songs were shorter, the arrangements tighter with less emphasis on slow atmospheres and more on the rapid fire interplay of mechanical rhythms and crunchy guitars. With LetDownCrush, 16volt launched full speed ahead with an unadulterated machine rock assault that takes no prisoners, setting many of the tropes of the band's sound and style that continue to this day. Released in 1996 on the now defunct but renowned Re-constriction imprint at the height of the industrial machine's infiltration of the mainstream, LetDownCrush found itself in a rather odd and exciting place in music history – Chemlab was organizing militias on the east side and KMFDM were busy being Xtorted; Stabbing Westward were withering, blistering, burning and peeling, and Gravity Kills were admitting guilt; Ministry were being filthy pigs and Skinny Puppy entered a process of bitter hibernation. It was the year of industrial, and 16volt were by now a well oiled war machine, locked and loaded for action.

The sultry and sinister laugh of guest vocalist Stella “Soleil” Katsoudas resonates through the speakers as electronic noise crackles into a mechanized percussive beat. Descending power chords and Powell's acerbic vocals kick in, and “Swarm” begins LetDownCrush with the force of a battering ram to the throat. With each successive track, the album unleashes a vicious onslaught of textural ambient backdrops that give added weight to the virulent guitars and caustic synthesizers. The pummeling rhythms and scathing guitars of “Breed” race by like the audio equivalent of an adrenaline high, while “Shameface” spares no ear drums with the percussion taking on an especially furious tonality, the guitars taking on a noisy texture like the metallic screams of a dilapidated factory.