Music

Retro Review: Test Dept. ‘Tactics For Evolution’

Published

14 years ago

September 1, 2010

This month’s Retro Review brings you to a group that is considered one of the founders of industrial music: Test Dept. Originally formed in 1981 in London, Test Dept. was considered a group that created music as a means of revolt to the surrounding events of the times. Their use of unconventional instrumentation (including pipes, metal beams, and other dilapidated construction equipment) gave their sound a very raw, mechanical tone that was often jarring and jolting to the senses. As time went on, their sound became progressively more techno inspired, although the mechanical influences stayed with them. Their final album, ‘Tactics For Evolution’, was released in 1997. Check after the jump to read my opinion!

Don’t forget to comment with your suggestion for next month’s Retro Review!

The album opens up with ‘Enigma of Doctor Dee’, a track that constantly inspired images of ‘Tetsuo: Iron Man’ in my mind. The main base repetition sounds like a distorted alarm mixed with the sound of two metal sheets hitting each other. Layered on top of that, quite often, are the sounds of crows cawing while menacing and ominous music floats overhead. The end result is very ‘’Cronenberg’’; a mixture of the mechanical and the organic (seems like this theme is pretty popular this week). Though not all of the following tracks share this eerie feeling, ‘Enigma of Doctor Dee’ casts a pervasive feeling of creepiness.

The production on the album is very modern sounding: You could easily assume that the album was recorded within the past few years. One of the joyous things about this album is that with each listen, as is often with electronic/techno/industrial albums, new sounds and new layers will emerge. The variety of sounds and tones and patches used on this album would probably inspire an electronic musician to no end. However, for the casual listener who may not notice such intricacies, ‘Tactics For Evolution’ makes for a great background CD when you want to creep your friends out.

The impact that Test Dept. has had on the electronic scene cannot be refuted or argued. Through a long and passionate history, Test Dept. has shown that music can represent a society that wishes for change or, at the very least, some sort of a noticeable impact. ‘Tactics For Evolution’ is an album that will subtly worm it’s way into you, grab hold and not let go. My only complaint is that often, the main theme of the song doesn’t change. It is constantly there and the rest of the music just builds on top of that. Some change in the base theme could easily help many of these songs.

4.5 out of 5 skulls

Related Topics:Cronenberg Industrial Retro Review review Tactics for Evolution Test Dept Tetsuo Iron Man

JonathanBarkan

Managing editor/music guy/social media fella of Bloody-Disgusting

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Music

“He Walks By Night” – Listen to a Brand New John Carpenter Song NOW!

Published

2 weeks ago

April 9, 2024

John Squires

It’s a new day, and you’ve got new John Carpenter to listen to. John Carpenter, Daniel Davies and Cody Carpenter have released the new track He Walks By Night this morning, the second single off their upcoming album Lost Themes IV: Noir, out May 3 on Sacred Bones Records.

Lost Themes IV: Noir is the latest installment in a series that sees Carpenter releasing new music for John Carpenter movies that don’t actually exist. The first Lost Themes was released in 2015, followed by Lost Themes II in 2016 and Lost Themes III: Alive After Death in 2021.

Sacred Bones previews, “It’s been a decade since John Carpenter recorded the material that would become Lost Themes, his debut album of non-film music and the opening salvo in one of Hollywood’s great second acts. Those vibrant, synth-driven songs, made in collaboration with his son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies, kickstarted a musical renaissance for the pioneering composer and director. With Lost Themes IV: Noir, they’ve struck gold again, this time mining the rich history of the film noir genre for inspiration.

“Since the first Lost Themes, John has referred to these compositions as “soundtracks for the movies in your mind.” On the fourth installment in the series, those movies are noirs. Like the film genre they were influenced by, what makes these songs “noirish” is sometimes slippery and hard to define, and not merely reducible to a collection of tropes. The scores for the great American noir pictures were largely orchestral, while the Carpenters and Davies work off a sturdy synth-and-guitar backbone.

“The trio’s free-flowing chemistry means Lost Themes IV: Noir runs like a well-oiled machine—the 1951 Jaguar XK120 Roadster from Kiss Me Deadly, perhaps, or the 1958 Plymouth Fury from John’s own Christine. It’s a chemistry that’s helped power one of the most productive stretches of John’s creative life, and Noir proves that it’s nowhere near done yielding brilliant results.”

You can pre-save Lost Themes IV: Noir right now! And listen to the new track below…