Their debut, “A Beautiful Sickness”, made us drool a lot. Now they’re back, after almost four years, and by now it’s a confirmation: Project: Failing Flesh are the new nightmare synthesis between metal and industrial sounds. Well, that’s the reason why “The Conjoined” represents an improvement: the implant of electronic, industrial and sick keys elements on the thrash background stratum reached levels of absolute completeness. How saying: “A Beautiful Sickness” was a modern thrash metal album with experimental edges, “The Conjoined” is an equal part hybrid. What Voivod could be doing after the legendary “Negatron” and “Phobos” if, instead of steering towards the more human vibe of the homonymous reunion, they decided to explore the world of synthetics: it’s not a case Eric Forrest decided to find home in such a project! The riffs are wicked, glacial and obsessive, often dissonant, and it’s impossible not to recall the inhuman mechanism of Ministry, though “The Conjoined” is their opposite, from a certain perspective: the pieces of Al Jourgensen are dry and unadorned (even if always engaged conceptually), the arrangements of Kevin 131 and Tim Gutierrez are thick and chiselled. Nothing’s missing: trip-hop rhythmical patterns (“Regenerate”), isolationist arpeggios (“Through The Broken Lens”), saxophone grins (the title-track, “Surface Noice”), vocal melody flashes (“The Motionless”), anguishing avantgarde black memories (“Eye Of Demise”)…as you maybe have understood, you must just scroll the tracklist to find something new in every track, something nice, stupefying. To conclude we can only mention the most tasty songs for the traditional thrashers are the opener “Final Act Of Treachery”, “Second Impact Syndrome” and “The Hand That You’ve Been Dealt”: try to resist headbanging. To listen, an absolute duty.

Fulvio Adile