CD, Ant-Zen, 2009
www.myspace.com/exocetband
In its first incarnation, Exocet was a New York-based, two-man band composed of René Klimaczewski and Dave Kean, who released their first CD, entitled “Violation”, on Ant-Zen in 2008. Since then, Dave Kean unfortunately passed away, so Klimaczewski kept the project alive on his own, which must have been difficult, but the guy pulled out quite well. Today, he offers us “Grotesque Consumer”, a fourteen-track solo album that can be seen as a tribute to his late partner.
In terms of genre, Exocet operates a subtle blend between rhythmic industrial/power noise and electronica. One could say this has been done many times before by other acts in this scene, but Exocet can be said to really have a trademark sound of its own. Beyond the crushing beats and the droning textures, there is a great deal of complex, IDM-like structures, and one can also hear lots of strange, original sounds and samples, which sometimes become an integral part of the rhythmical “backbone” of the tracks, as in songs such as “Like Hot and Bad Dreams” and “Narcoholica”, for example.
Overall, most of the tracks remain repetitive and heavy, but they also contains all kinds of weird little sounds you can discern if you prick up your ears, and they are sprinkled with multilingual vocal samples (in English, German, French and Japanese) which contribute to creating the dark and martial atmosphere of the album, throwing the listener into a doom-laden, warlike world. Nevertheless, some of these tracks turn out to be surprisingly danceable.
[7/10]
— Olivier Noel