CD, Crunch Pod, 2008
www.myspace.com/uberbyte
At the end of the day, this is a party album… If you’re at a club, and in the mood to have fun, you’ll probably enjoy hearing a track from this album. This is what I mean by party music: “Sic” can be placed somewhere in the range between Cervello Elettronico and Combichrist. More prosaically, the album’s main characteristics are bouncy bass lines, arpeggiated leads, anthemic vocals, and those saw-wave filter sweeps that the kids like so much these days. This album was not meant to be listened to at low decibel levels, which will make it get a bit monotonous. This is also an album that tricks you, as when you hear the individual tracks, you assume they sound awesome. Listening to the album as a whole will leave you quite bored. Creating an onslaught of hooks and bouncy beats can lead any album to sound bland. This music works best to make bodies convulse, and its luster fades if one sits in an armchair thinking too hard about it.
Much of “Sic” carries on some of the seminal EBM vibes. The main focus of many of the tracks is a bass loop repeated through the whole song, while angsty lyrics are yelled out in a repetitive fashion. One of the strengths of the album is that it makes no attempt to emote or create (pseudo) emotional depth through lyrics – avoiding a lot of painful and laughable clichés. This is supposed to be high-energy body music; so the chanting in songs like “Lift Up Your Face” and “Going Down” blends wells with the music. Though for those looking for more catchy synth-lines, there are future-poppy hits like “SSDM” and “Sertaline.” And the highlight of the album comes with their clubbed-up version of the Boyd Rice classic “Total War.” There’s a club hit on this album to satisfy most people’s fancy. Regardless of what kind of genre-nook your local scene DJ has climbed into, there’ll be at least one track on this album he’ll want to (over) play (to death).
While this may not be an artistic tour-de-force, it’s a fun mix of beats, bass, and yelling. You might enjoy it a few times at the club, you might enjoy it while weightlifting, or you might enjoy it while you’re drunk as hell at 4 a.m. and trying to get evicted from your apartment by playing music as loud as possible. There’s also a damn good chance that you’ll enjoy seeing UberByte play live a lot more then their release – something of a rarity in electronic music.
[7/10]
— Lemmy S.