Search - Skinny Puppy :: Remission

Best SP Album

Robert NIckel | Mount Vernon, Ohio United States | 09/29/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Ive heard about 7 Skinny Puppy CD's and this one is my favorite. The Early SP seems to be the best, most creative and original sounding. This is a piece of classic early industrial work for any true industrial fan."

Morbid Desert Ice Cream Eyes So Deceiving Fraternize Careful

Jonathan Dedward | Nowheresville, Slothwestern North America | 08/07/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In 1984 Skinny Puppy released this, what would later be considered their first official album. Though Skinny Puppy's sound has always been a sort of work in progress, all the important elements were already in place. I can only imagine that in 1984 listeners must've been surprised by the combination of bass heavy electronic beats, chilling horror-movie/Twilight Zone sound bites and a vocal melody provided Ogre's morbid stream-of-consciousness chanting.The album opens strongly with the classic track "Smothered Hope," a song that remains a concert staple. It's a dancey song and very catchy, but edged with a sense of malice and anger over a wide variety of global subjects. The rest of the album, unsurprisingly follows suit. "Glass Houses" is even more dancey, even more catchy (to me anyhow) and again Ogre's trademark drug-fiend/cyborg rap really shines. "Incision" and "Far Too Frail" continue the greatness along those same lines, while somehow all sounding very different from one another. At this point the zombie-robot dance party gets a break in the form of "Film" an atmospheric instrumental that, while interesting, gets old pretty fast. After that, the mood turns even bleaker. The grim instrumentation of "Manwhole" picks up where the action left off, but ditching the dance feel, expands upon the dark drone hinted at in "Film's" keyboards. "Manwhole" seethes and moans into the funereal dirge of "Ice Breaker" which brings back Ogre's emotionally frigid metaphorical wordplay. At last, Remission's crowning point, "Solvent" launches, an incomparable medley of driving beat and lyrics delivered with an urgency not matched previously in the disc, signifying maybe the death throes of our Zombie Robot narrator. While not dancey like the previous songs, "Solvent" is elevated by the deadpan seriousness of its every element, from its beats to its vocals and it caps this album brilliantly. Finally, "Sleeping Beast" is a mostly atmospheric track, and while Ogre's vocalizations are front and center here, the song doesn't really add much to the album. "Glass Out" is an deconstructive remix of "Glass Houses" featuring even more bizzare vocal distortion from a broken Ogre and if nothing else kind of highlights the fact that if Remission is a guided tour of cyborg hell, our humble guide is irreparably damaged. It's bloody brilliant however you see it, as a both slowed down and twisted version of one of the best tracks of this incomparable album. Finally, the disc closes with "Brap" a generic name for Skinny Puppy audio experiments and setting a precedent for all future Puppy releases. This "Brap" however is a chilling collage of audio samples of horror movie lines and screams, most of which even now are used as atmosphere at live shows. This is a terrific album... despite some low points it ranks among Skinny Puppy's greatest works.

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Buy!

shog | shogville | 12/01/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"My first experiment with puppy was with the new stuff. I loved it, wanted to hear some old stuff. So i got bites, wasn't impressed. Got mind TPI, wasn't impressed. When remission came out, i crapped my pants, because i was an infant. When i bought remission, quite a few years later, i nearly crapped em again.



Smothered Hope is a legendary song, i bought the album on account of it. However the rest of the songs (all of them) are just as good. Incision is incredible. It's like hexonxonx with rhythm. I can listen to the song all day. Far too frail, sleeping beast, icebreaker are classics. Interestingly enough, icebreaker gets a kick-ass intro in manwhole, and the song itself is slightly better than the Bites version.



There's a minimalistic raw element of the sound, which is more subdued in Bites. The energy is incredible, and the album is original as it gets. Mind you, it's not as wildly deep and esoteric as their later albums, that's growth for you. The music is accessible (for puppy) and the appeal is instantaneous. I count this as a must-have album."