CD Reviews
Meat Injection - System Anomaly | Review
Meat Injection - System Anomaly
June 2020
Wave Records
Dark synths wrapping an angry, cold and dark ambience, expressed with a passionate, full of emotions voice.
Well, this one is an album which I was expecting to listen to with eagerness and I wanted to write about.
Meat Injection's first full length album, "System Anomaly" is coming out on June 20th, via Wave Records, in digital format, while both physical formats, CD and vinyl, will follow later in the summer, with the dates to be announced. Meat injection is a dark electro band including a great amount of post-punk elements, adopted in their synths and the cold wave sounds. Formed back in 2016, with two EPs already released, "Death For Fun" (2016), In Club Records and "Hang Me Love Me" (2017), Self Released, Meat Injection currently consist of Dimitris Katsikadis (bass, guitar, all music arrangements), Cleopatra Kaido (vocals, lyrics), Alexandros Ginalas (drums).
"System Anomaly" is a work that could make you wander between different emotions throughout the album. However, what could considered certain is that Meat Injection, really love what they do, they give their heart on it, and they darken our souls. And after all and by the end of the album, a taste of raw anger, a quest of someone's inner self and pure rage and agony is what will be kept as a feeling.
Meat Injection opens the album with the same titled song, "System Anomaly". A song with strong synth melody, mid tempo beats, building an ambience full of, almost, erotic vibes, leading to a form of confession, performed in a beautiful way from Cleopatra Kaido. "Dead Santa" comes next, bringing in front the darkest side of the band and the album, with a sarcastic but true story, in a cold melody with strong bassline, becoming powerful when needed.
"Chemical Romance" is an emotional, melodic dark synth-wave arrangement, upon a story about chemical romances. Dimitris reflects in his music, this sweet depression expressed in Cleopatra's vocals. "A Heart Made Of Sand" brings more tense with strong beats, almost touching the lines of EBM or techno, beautiful synth lines and the voice of Cleopatra start expressing and being filled with anxiety and anger.
"Last Endlessly Lust" starts with some keys and guitars bringing memories of new wave sounds, when a strong rhythm starts, calling you to dance. A song that, to me, has so many different influences, all equally arranged to create a bitter-sweet melody for a story about endless lusts. Post-punk tempo built with synths in front, new wave feelings and dark, depressed, romanticism in the voice. "A Touch In The Dungeon" is a highlight in "System Anomaly". It is the song that shows all the coldness and darkness, Meat Injection want to express with their music. Cleopatra reveals all the lyricism she holds, with emotional parts in the vocals, singing the obsessed, sentimental lines of a sad story, feeling the emptiness of closing oneself off and of lost chances.
"Deadly Horny Priest" is an instrumental, dark electro track, going into cold synths in up tempo. "Chaotic Ride" explodes all the desperate agony and the anger someone needs to express about everyday sadness and dead ends around us. Strong arrangements with a compact sound and Cleopatra's voice going from despair to anger. "Black Out Sentiment" keeps the tension from the previous song, telling a different story. The drums here goes over to some breaking beats, with dark synth melodies, while vocals strengthen these elements and making this one (along with "Chaotic Ride"), perhaps the most powerful songs.
Closing song is "Time Infection". A song, collecting the variety of feelings in the album. Rage, anxiety, anger, passion, desolation but with a sense of determination, as well. Music-wise stands exactly there, with the music characteristics of Dimitris Katsikadis.
"System Anomaly" is a really beautiful album. It creates its own unique darkness through the music arrangements of Dimitris Katsikadis, who builds a dark, emotional punk wave, with melodic parts when it is necessary and raw and breaking parts in other moments. Additionally, this uniqueness in Meat Injection's full length album is, also, due to the incredible voice of Cleopatra Kaido. An expressive and soulful voice, with which, Cleopatra manages to bring in front of us all the feelings she needs to express with her lyrics and the music. "System Anomaly" is definitely an album beyond the strict lines of a specific label, since it goes where the band wants to. Deep dark in some moments, coldness in others, pure anger and despair in others. Dark electro, dark wave through the souls of Meat Injection.
"System Anomaly" produced by Nikolas ''TheMute" Chalntoupis and Meat Injection. Recorded, Mixed and Mastered at SoundCave Studios Athens. All artwork by Teokon (Theodoros Kontaxis).
Info:
https://www.facebook.com/meatinjectionband/
