reviews

ATTRITION – DANTE'S KITCHEN review from Tentacles e-zine. 2005.

Attrition has created one if the most incredible goth-electro records that I have heard. The theme seems to be an exploration of god, and spirituality, with a very big (and blatant) nod to Dante's “Inferno”, not that I'm going to pretend to be well versed enough to have read it. Perhaps the idea is to explore the meeting of the spirit and the body. Dante's Kitchen could refer to the banalizing of hell, the everyday descent into sin, the hell that is the everyday. Thematically tense subject, the symbol of religiosity in the everyday. And this theme is perfectly accented by the music. Using a mix of groovy electronics, violins, whispered male vocals, as well as operatic female utterings, and well placed samples, Attrition has made a mix of gloomy and captivating songs: Although they retain a distinct darker edge, they also make you want to move and groove along to the songs, wile varying caustic elements remain to keep your mind alive as well. An album that soothes the mind and invigorates the body, a true gem, aided even more by the overtones of spiritual reflection. The music takes you away forces you to move to it. The listener can't quite escape the grasp of the kindled spirit. Basslines that stalk you, as a lost soul looking for a place to rest, while the drums kick in to augment this with a perfect laid back groove, questioning one's place in the universe, if not the nature of the universe itself. And the samples are truly inspired adding to the listener's understanding of the song. A smooth blend of theosophy catchy basslines, groovy drums, angelic melodies, and haunting atmospheres; in other words worth hearing.

ATTRITION – DANTE'S KITCHEN review from Dark Realms. USA 2005.

England 's eclectic goth act Attrition is back and have produced another outstanding release with Dante's Kitchen. Martin Bowes provides the electronica and spoken word vocals while Julia Wallers stunning operatic vocals hover and soar like a dark nightingale throughout the various melodies. The dazzling violin work of Rafael also adds to the band's diverse and unique sound. Most of the lyrics are so deep and personal that their meaning seems obscure, yet this quality tends to make them all the more intriguing to the listener. “Andante” is a very concise instrumental which centres around an entrancing violin melody and “Two Gods” is a thought-provoking song about loss and ruin. The title cut is the real standout track, whisking listeners away on a musical journey throughout an ethereal realm of wonder and evoking unearthly visons of splendor in the mind's eye. Dante's Kitchen is a dark masterpiece of music and imagination. Highly reccomended.

Randy Rosko

Attrition - Dante's Kitchen review from Sideline magazine. 2004

Dante's Kitchen brandishes a reborn sound for Attrition, abundant with new influences and passion.
Certainly, one can draw a few comparisons to the sound the fluxes throughout. The eerie opera of Die Form, the sultry rhythms of recent Massive Attack, and the alien organics of perhaps Coil.
Preceded by the introductory tortured violin of "Andante", the disc plunges into the disjointed dance macabre of the title track. Martin Bowes gravel voice bristles across break beats as high-pitched female operatic pleads for divine help.
"The Head of Gabriel" continues with reptilian grace; an elastic bass beat twang here summons the shimmer of ghostly ethereal vocal as the violin flutters around like a moth lost in the piece's trance. Warm warbling waves of bass carry driftwood banshees and samples through "The Long Hall", before being disrupted by a frenetic rhythm, as their chanteuse is chased by a retro horror keyboard line.
"A Ladder" is a seething dub exploration that bounds through in nocturnal slow motion, while the subterranean samba of "Two Gods" is enhanced by doom-laden violin while the title repeated as a mantra. "Dreamcatcher"
exhales a nightmare underneath banshee wails and nightmare-depicting dialogue samples, spilling out natural drums that somewhat slice through its claustrophobic tension.
Attrition also delves back into their worlds of dark ambience. "Feed the Crow" is a grim piece haunted by the hiss and clunk of ancient steam tunnels amidst the choppy flutter of electronics and banshee sighs.
Finally, the closing "Still Life?" glistens with ambient textures and the birdcall of flutes before being drenched in a field recording of a foreboding storm. Overall, I find Dante's Kitchen is balanced precisely between ominous soundtracks and the vivid thrum of fetish-istic techno.
Enthralling as well as eerie, it might be their best effort to date.

Dante's Kitchen
~review by Matthew Heilman. Starvox zine 2004

It has been just shy of five years since Attrition's last studio album The Jeopardy Maze was released. In the interim, several remixed, live, and compilation albums and EPs surfaced, so it never seemed as though the band had fallen under the radar or anything of that sort. Dante's Kitchen, the latest and tenth studio album set for release in July, is a triumphant and extraordinarily consistent album that keeps the torch of classic Darkwave fiercely burning.

This is dark, atmospheric electro in its purist form, from the very band that practically laid the landscape for Darkwave music years ago. As well, it is shivering, spine-tingling Gothic in its literal and atmospheric sense. Ancient decay and putrefied eloquence is fused with a stark, nightmarish vision of the future. Fans of Attrition are already familiar with their sparse and shadowy sound, which on this release, is comparable to an even darker and spookier continuation of the excellent 3 Arms & A Dead Cert album from 1995, and it honestly blows away The Jeopardy Maze in my opinion.

Dante's Kitchen is concentrated and determined in its focus, achieving an admirable balance between the pulsating, electronic beats with organic and more traditional elements. Martin's gristly baritone is downright sepulchral in its grumbling depth - securing his sovereignty as one of the smoothest and distinctive vocalists in all of Gothdom! He sounds positively menacing on this record, and when paired with the operatic female vocals, the effect is scarier and more sublime than any other co-ed vocal duo. In particular, longtime companion Julia Waller appears on this disc and her bewitching, frigid vocals echo with wraithlike brilliance, perhaps the most ghostly and effective performances since her earliest days with the band.

Raphaels' devilish viola is a constant otherworldly presence
throughout the disc, alternating between fluid conventional passages and scraping, shrill and spidery forays into brittle dissonance. The viola's presence is vital and integral to the bands sound, always appropriate, always adding an additional dimension of emotional depth to the ominous soundscapes. It pushes this material into preternatural and unsettling realms, where a sinister magic is produced as it continually reverberates throughout a yawning void of mesmerizing electronics. This not a peppy synth pop record designed for the ignorant masses to dance around to
drunkenly at their local 'goth' club. No, though the structures and
arrangements are accessible and orthodox enough, it is meticulous and hypnotic music that is intended to seep into your mind and heart, and haunt you with its gripping minimalism. Technology and traditional instrumentation are fused in order to evoke the unknown and the familiar simultaneously. Well-timed and strategically placed samples of odd dialogue appear throughout, successfully contributing to the disorienting, dreamlike atmosphere. Paranoid and faceless female characters appear and disappear, shedding light into their unstable psyches. Glimpses and snapshots of strange places, misplaced memories, and uncertain journeys submerge the
listener into mysterious and lucid depths.

Subdued, nocturnal pulsations ebb and flow, predominantly restrained but rich in tension and the threat of a sonic explosion. The rhythms crest with frantic techno breakbeats such as those that appear in "The Long Hall" or the striking title track, but slower, heavier percussive elements appear, as with the slinky eroticism of the exceptional single "Two Gods Are Better Than One."

"The Ladder" is steeped in contemplative melancholy, as a collage of
beckoning sirens mournfully harmonize with dreary, ghostly grace atop swelling synths and a throbbing elastic rhythm and dry snapping snare. "Dreamcatcher" creepily unfolds atop a subtly funky arrangement, bobbing angular viola and more chilling vocals, ultimately flowing toward a jagged, sprawling crescendo of found sounds and swirling noise. The final cut "Still Life?" is a creeping instrumental, utilizing the ordinary sounds of a child's playtime interrupted by an imposing storm. The album ends in abstraction, on a note of quiet unease and above all, a desire to repeat the same aural journey several more times.

Dante's Kitchen is a superb and enveloping album, a trip through a shadowy house of mirrors, spacious and reflecting blackness and your most unconscious thoughts. The album is crafted around the principle that less inevitably offers more, as only the strongest and most effective ideas have been executed. Though there are no immediate, pounding club hits, it is a more subversively powerful and demanding album, and as Attrition has always managed to do so successfully, they accompany the listener along the cobwebbed corridors of their own untapped revelries and they invite their
fans into the nether regions of their own blackly vivid minds.

Ultimately, Attrition has not wavered in their constancy for delivering the very best Darkwave music available. They have not compromised their longstanding visions of the strange and obscure to coincide with trends, but rather enhanced their art, forging ahead into new contemporary dimensions of their familiar style.

Fans of the band will devour this whole, and I recommend this release to anyone that appreciates music in its darkest, shadiest forms - fans of classical and dark techno will delight in hearing these genres crossing by such effortless and appropriate means. Dante's Kitchen is another excellent addition to Attrition's immeasurably valuable discography.

'Dante's Kitchen' review - from Judas Kiss magazine. UK 2004

Attrition have always been a band whose music I've enjoyed immensely and are one of the few groups that I think are criminally under-rated in the industrial scene in Europe (although the US and goth scenes seem to genuinely appreciate them for the strikingly original contributions).
Their recordings have always attempted to transcend the boundaries of a definitive sound and atmosphere, whilst remaining in a sphere of output that has an overtly distinctive sound so you almost instantly know who you're listening to.
It's been four years since the brilliantly abstract 'the Jeopardy Maze' album, and although a few remix and collection albums have emmerged, Attrition have remained all but silent, that is however
until now and the release of perhaps their finest set of recordings to date, the 'Dante's Kitchen' album.
Primarily structured around the juxtaposition of Martin's dark, deep male vocals and the heavenly, operatic like female vocals, that interweave together like a demon and angel dancing seductively together as the world around them melts into oblivion.
The inclusion of an array of beat driven structures adds a subtle yet complementary addition to the very fabric of the album and
carries the very essence of the tracks along with an endearingly dark and shadowed beauty that is prevalent from the very opening seconds. This darkened atmosphere is added to by the inclusion of some wonderfully selected samples and occasional classical orchestrations that crescendo delicately in and out of the album as a whole, which in turns helps produce a wonderfully dark and gripping sound that is filled with such a seductive beauty, which becomes almost addictive.
'Dante's Kitchen' is a brilliantly put together album that really can't be faulted in anyway and will hopefully be the release that moves Attrition into a more predominant position within the dark industrial genre they so deserve.
An absolutely stunning release that has been receiving constant play since it arrived in the JK office.
LP

"Dante's Kitchen" - review from Godsend Online. USA 2004

After 20+ years and 12 studio LPs, this veteran dark electronic act here brings forth arguably one of their best releases yet. Leader Martin Bowes has emerged as a masterful programmer, joining classical/soundtrack structures with operatic vocals and modern electronic beats. His own gruff, icy vocals juxtapose with the lovely female vox, while the songs slide from sinister ambiance to trip-hoppy clubworthiness. 'The Head Of Gabriel' brings a dubby feel which is accented by strings and pretty female vocals. Certainly not something you hear every day. Tracks like 'The Long Hall' begin with a murky, creepy ambience and end up in a flourish of deep breakbeats. The closing track, 'Still Life' is a doomy soundtrack of the first order, ambient and laced with tension. 'Dante's Kitchen' is a splendid work of art, from the exquisite cover by John Santerineross to the tense and surreal sounds within. ATTRITION forge ahead and beyond on this release, and they have more than proven to be innovators and visionaries. Recommended. (Invisible)

"Dante's Kitchen" - review from studiomlive.com USA 2004

Electronic music pioneers Attrition have broken their four-year silence with the release of the sinister Dante's Kitchen. They have never fully been appreciated, as their music is difficult to neatly categorize. It combines elements of electronic, gothic, industrial, avant garde and classical- all arriving as a concentrated but seamless energy. An Attrition song has always been a dense, impressive wonder of overlapping vocals and samples, supported
by electronic rhythms and atmospherics. No new ground has been broken with Dante's Kitchen, and in fact it is something of a throwback to their Hidden Agenda era, having recently done stints with modern classical and heavier electronic releases. Dante's Kitchen is as much goth/ industrial as it is dance/ electronic, and serves to put the band back on the map on the late-night goth club dance floors. The range on the disc is notable, drifting from near classical/ atmospheric ponderings of Two Gods, brooding
dub/ sample-heavy selections like The Ladder, through the denser club-worthy tracks as The Head Of Gabriel.

Bowes' voice has always been distinctive and that character is in full form here- his deep, emotionless delivery renders a chilling effect across most of his lines. It is the concurrence of Bowes' rich drawl and Julia Waller's soaring, almost violin-like vocals that have long been the trademark of an Attrition track. Recursive and densely rhymed lyrics create tight rhythms on Dante's Kitchen. On the title track we find verses like "Sometimes I'm blind/ And my hands are so tied/ To the walls that I climb/ In my kitchen tonight." This track also introduces the use of film samples which are effectively placed within the track and add to its complexity.

One of the discs real highlights is the snearing, thundering The Head Of Gabriel. Sounding instrumentally like a death march, Bowes' deep, hushed lines arrive like pure evil just below Waller's achingly operatic vocals. "Bring me your acolytes/ Pre-madonna sybarites/ I sacked the shamanite/ Give me Gabriel's head." The track contains a nice mix of what is best about the band- infectious rhythms, unforgettable vocals, and an unmistakable sense of dread. Attrition's unique chemistry is stamped throughout the disc, and gives it almost the essence of a compilation. On the daunting Dreamcatcher,
Bowes appears to be lurking in the shadows, his voice rising and falling around the synth bass as he mouths "Dreamcatcher/ Childminder/ Bodysnatcher/ Witchfinder" between Waller's wailing and the pithy samples. I'm not sure what he's trying to say here, but it's impossible not to get the point.

It is always refreshing to hear a new Attrition disc, and this time
particularly so. Dante's Kitchen is certainly their best release in a
decade, and one that will hopefully find them getting more of the attention the quality of their craft deserves. Very highly recommended for fans of either genre, or people looking for unique and challenging music played by extremely talented individuals.

Attrition - Dante's Kitchen from www.darklifezine.de 2004

Some three years of intense work for Martin Bowes have resulted in Dante's Kitchen, the 12th full length production for one of the pioneering minds of the UK electronic / experimental wave. With the very introductive notes, a dark mood is established, which is brilliantly maintained throughout, using many of the traditional ingredients so dear to the band's fans, Martin's pinch for experimentation being naturally one of them, but going a few steps
further and melting in the pot a varied range of influences, re-elaborating them in a unique and original way. Attrition's electronic arrangements and textures have always had a high degree of complexity, retaining a sense of minimalism with more lyrical content added by the female vocals ranging from heavenly to opera like. These in turn juxtapose Martin deep and gritty narration, building greatly a tension on their own. The addition of nervous
violin arrangements contributes a sort of "hellish" feel while percussive textures underline most part of the proceedings adding extra dynamism to the already unsettling picture. The album sports a quite hermetic name, and this isn't certainly an album about lilies or sunny days. it's dark in a sort of tormenting way and cold, yet full of passion, like a tormented soul. Tracks such Feed The Crow with its hypnotic synth line or The Long Hall with its interrogative spoken vocal lines and its crescendo underlined by a drum'n' bass like percussive insertion are explicative of these feelings. The title
track is by far the most accessible cut, a definite candidate for the pitch dark dancefloor. Closing with a piece of doom ambient, Attrition seal a flawless production that would have to go very well down with those into cold wave and dark electronics, all the way to goths with eyes open to experimentation, while industrialists of the dark side should definitely keep a close eye on it as well.

Gianfri