Band:	Synaptic Fracture
Album:	The Lunatic Transmissions
Style:	Industrial metal
Release date:	March 02, 2010
A review by:	Lucas

01. Feed The Machine
02. The Lunatic Transmissions
03. Contagion
04. Hallucination Machine
05. Cries From Collapsing Dimensions
06. Delusions Of A Wicked God
07. Procession Of The Equinox
08. Esoterra Firma
09. Synaptic Fracture

Synaptic Fracture is the new project of E.M. Hearst, of Wraith Of The Ropes and Torture Wheel fame and more recently of The NULLL Collective. Those projects are all Funeral Doom, Synaptic Fracture is not. Not by a long shot.

What we're submitted to on The Lunatic Transmission is, as dubbed by the man himself, "Brutal Industrial Death metal". I'm not the expert on Industrial around here, but I can definitely tell this is pretty brutal. Influences range from Skinny Puppy to Frontline Assembly to Behemoth and Morbid Angel - that should give you an idea of what this sounds like. Mind you, in my opinion this is much closer to Industrial than it is to Death metal.

Opener "Feed The Machine" sets the mood with its processed inhuman sound, ghastly distorted growls and merciless cold execution. It's graced by two solos, one sounds like a Hammond organ gone viciously insane, the other is more straight up metal. The record goes on like this - a merciless and harsh vibe, created by a completely mechanized sound and various types of distortion and noise elements. Occasionally the beats get catchier and there's a slight trippy electro-industrial vibe ("Hallucination Machine"), but this is mostly crawling-under-your-skin ghastly music.

The Lunatic Transmission is not something that'll get a daily spin, simply because I'm not really at home with the genre(s) it manoeuvres between. But whenever I crave something a bit less metal yet still menacing, I do find myself turning to this. I'm not sure how to rate it since I'm not familiar with the genre's past achievements, but I do recommend it for a test-ride to the industrials out there. It's available completely free of charge as MP3 or lossless FLAC here.