GRAVITY KILLS - PERVERSION

Gravity Kills is an industrial band erupting on the heels of post grunge 90s. Nine Inch Nails turned the Alternative music head towards Industrial sounds via German avant garde Einstürzende Neubauten and Kraftwerk. These bands influenced another huge movement in popular music during the 80's by inspiring the intensely engineered sound of Depeche Mode. "The Downward Spiral" was everywhere and labels were signing up anything remotely similar in the off chance of capitalizing on Nine Inch Nails' incredible success. And that's how Gravity Kills signed a record deal.

Don't get me wrong, I like the band. I bought their first record when it came out and I bought the single plus the remix album. I quite like a lot of their stuff. But there's no denying it... Gravity Kills are not the trend setting industrial band they aspire to be. They are definitely the product of a musical trend. I picked up "Perversion" full price at the Tower Records WOW store in Las Vegas and I regret that. Not because the record is bad... It's just not worth full price.

On the heels of their self-titled debut, "Perversion" sounds more like a batch of b-sides or rejected material. There are really only two songs that stand out; "Alive" and "One". Neither one of them are chart topping hits, but they're comparable to rest of the self-titled album to make them worth hearing. The remainder of the record suffers from all of the ingredients that make Gravity Kills the mediocre industrial band they are... Generic lyrics with over-exaggerated self importance... When the best track on the album features lyrics like, "Let me be the one to clear your eyes - I am the one to tear down your disguise" you know you're in trouble. Cliche's abound.

I want to give this record better praise and I want to say Gravity Kills really knocked this one out of the park, but I just don't hear it. I don't listen to this record and groove out. In fact, I never put it on and just let it play. I've tried to a couple of times and I get bored. I have the songs I like and they're cool so I'll stick with them. Otherwise, I'll enjoy their older material and unless I hear some seriously good news, I'll avoid the new stuff. My final words: TAKE A PASS AND DOWNLOAD INDIVIDUAL TRACKS.

GRAVITY KILLS - PERVERSION
01. Falling
02. If
03. Crashing
04. Drown
05. Alive
06. Wanted
07. Always
08. One
09. Disintigrate
10. Belief (To Rust)