The Berzerker - The Reawakening

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The Berzerker at Myspace

“The Reawakening” marks The Berzerker’s fourth studio album and also his first, truly, independent release.  After the release of “Animosity”, Luke Kenny was apparently very disillusioned by Earache Records, and the entire record industry as a whole, and decided to create his own record label for his music; he even posted a small movie on how the profits in the music industry is really distributed.  In reality, this is no surprise because the current state of the recording industry is at the weakest state its ever been with everyone having home recording equipment and software that could literally master an album in no time with little to no money needed.  But that is a topic of another time, the music of The Berzerker is really what matters and on this record, he comes out with more force, more focus, and more creativity than he ever has in his last few records.
The album starts off with “Wisdon and Corruption” features a more gabber flavor than his last two albums; not to say that the last few albums were crap or unfocused but the idea of “The Berzerker” was to create a living Death/Gabber band and he did achieve it on “Dissimulate” but the idea can sometimes cloud the creativity or uniqueness of the art.  This album is actually more “artful” than “World of Lies” and “Animosity” put together because Luke decided to not hide his Gabber/DnB side and instead incorporate it into the music.  I, personally, think what he achieved on this record is what he was trying to do with all the albums but maybe the record label wanted a more “conventional” sounding electronic death metal act.

Honestly, after “Animosity”, I thought The Berzerker was going a bit stale because his idea of trying to make the fastest, brutal death metal band/album and when you compare “World of Lies”, “Animosity”, and “Dissimulate” you hear someone trying to create/program drums that are 150x faster than any human drum can create and to a degree it works but after a few attempts, and possibly rehashing of the same patterns, the art of music gets lost.

So when I first heard “The Reawakening”, I was blown away that this record a pattern or structure that made some sense given the music.  The guitars are still ever fast/Carcass-est but the focus on the drums was actually a HUGE breath of fresh air because Luke changed the patterns, for example “Disassembly Line” features a short DnB pause that helps build the song and carries it through force.  The song “Your Final Seconds” starts off with fast Gabber kicks but suddenly stops and goes almost “Breakcore-ish” and then returns to its Industrial Grind.  These little changes and additions to the song structure are the things that made the first Berzerker album soo standout.  In 2000, the self titled masterpiece of “The Berzerker” opened my ears to a new sound in Death Metal and I think was the first, focused example of creativity and imagination being used to recreate a genre that is so set in its own ways.

So what more can I say about this album more than its refreshing to hear this band return to its roots and imagination.  One thing I forgot to mention about this record was that it features, for the first time in the bands history actually, remixes from fans and fellow hardcore techno artists that Luke Kenny has known for sometime.  The promotion for the album began with a songwriting campaign, very similar to Trent Reznor’s Year Zero Remixed campaign, that allowed fans to remix one or two of his songs in anyway that they envisioned it.  Also, the band would choose their favorite remix and the fans would choose theirs and both would end up on the album, which they did.  So not only is this Luke’s best “Berzerker” album but also his gift to fans by giving some of them a chance to appear on a release of this magnitude.

For purchasing information, go to www.berzerkerindustries.com and get the album and the newly released 12″ with bonus remixes.