Buy  This CD at Darkcell Digital Music

Inertia 
Advanced Revelation (Cryonica) 
~reviewed by Uncle Nemesis 

If you've been reading your StarVox with due attention, you'll recall I dished up a brief history of Inertia last issue, attatched to the review of their 'No Defect' EP. I noted how they'd pioneered the electronic sound in the 90s, when the industrial scene was dominated by guitar-toting rock-industrial outfits such as Ministry and Cubanate. Now, in 2002, it's probably fair to say that the world has caught up with Inertia: *everyone* is doing electronics. Indeed, what we used to call the industrial scene has increasingly become dominated by EBM acts such as VNV Nation and Apoptygma Berzerk, who have taken things in a far more accessible - dare I say, commercial - direction. In this climate, Inertia find themselves out on a limb all over again - they're one of the few bands around still doing electronic *industrial* music. They make few concessions to the accessible grooves of the EBM dancefloor. They're still keeping it harsh and abrasive, while all around them everyone's smoothing it out and glossing it up. 

So, for anyone who still likes a bit of grit in their gears, the release of Inertia's new album should raise a bit of interest. 'Advanced Revelation' has all the hardcore electro-industrial noise you could wish for....along with a few hints that maybe, just maybe, the future for Inertia lies in a somewhat different direction. 

Before we listen to the music, a word about the visuals. I was rather uncomplimentary about the sleeve artwork of the 'No Defect' EP - it's over-stylised and...well, *brown*. Fortunately, the sleeve to 'Advanced Revelation' is a distinct improvement. For a start, the base colour is red (the colour of excitement and passion!), the design is slick, and - best of all - the inner sleeve features some extremely cool cyber-cartoon pictures of Reza and Alexys, who, along with an ever-shifting cast of collaborators, *are* Inertia. 

Slap the CD into the slot, and we're greeted with the mad-scientist noisescape of 'Atom', all analogue boops and skreets and whirls. This gives way to 'Gravity', a beat, a pulse, a sardonic vocal - and a catchy chorus, which comes as a slight surprise, given Inertia's devotion to the harsher end of electronic noise. However, the production is stark and uncompromising, and the track pulls back from the brink. 'Reset' is fast and nervous, synths shivering behind a thumping beat. 'The Place' is the first hint that Inertia may be shifting ground slightly: the beat and shivering synths from 'Reset' are kept running ('The Place' effectively seems to be a dub of 'Reset'), but here those elements are entwined with a lush keyboard melody, the kind of thing you'd expect to hear on an old Visage album. This is the first hint that there might be more to Inertia than the harsh-industrial thing... 

However, 'Void' kicks in with a good old bump 'n' grind beat, and certainly keeps things loud and fierce, as does the following track, 'No Defect', which is fast and robotic, all chanted voices and rattling synth-sequences. Then comes 'Nova', a surprising but effective cinematic instruental, like an out-take from a 70s Sci-Fi movie. It has that marvellous retro-futuristic feel, but only lasts for a few short minutes. Then we're back with the big bad beats and staccato electronix in classic uncompromising Inertia style....until 'Eosm' brings us back to that Sci-Fi movie the band seem to be watching in their heads. This time, we seem to have come in during the making-love-in-zereo-gravity scene, to a soundtrack of warm, drifting synths. 

And then comes 'Fly', which kicks off with the trademark thumping beat, although the production suddenly seems warmer. The vocal on this is taken by Alexys, who sings a naggingly catchy song with some surreal lyrics: 'I am watching/A thousand fires/Burning in the rain'...'Touch me with your soul...Baby watch me fly'. This is where Inertia make their radical departure from their usual blueprint. They've been dropping hints throughout the album, with their odd little cinematic interludes and the occasional bursts of melodic stuff, that they've got more ideas than the harsh stomp and chant which has been their stock-in-trade for several albums now. 'Fly' is where they allow themselves to really take off (as it were) - and end up somewhere quite different. This is recognisably Ineria, but it's a *different* Inertia, and it works rather well. 

It's almost a disappointment when the following track, 'Bodynoise', returns to the main artery of Inertia-noise, as it were, with a whump-whump rhythm and chanted vocal. It's a good track, but it does suffer from the 'more of the same' factor. 'Expo' is another Sci-Fi interlude (this time we're in the scene where the aliens electrocute the crew of the spaceship by wiring the contols in the bridge to the main reactor) - and 'Pathfinder' finishes the album with another stomp and chant workout. 

'Advanced Revelation' strikes me as an odd album, in a way. It showcases the familiar Inertia sound of take-no-prisoners thumping electronics and abrasive, chanted vocals - but this *is* familiar territory. We *know* Inertia can do this, and do it well. And although it's all good stuff, it does suffer a little from being so familiar. 

For me, the most interesting tracks here are those in which the band ditch the formula, and explore other ideas. Those Sci-Fi instrumentals...the sudden juxtaposition of melody on the heavy-duty beats...Alexys and her curiously psychedelic song. These are the avenues I'd like the band to explore in the future - and whatever else takes their fancy, too, of course. Inertia have a hard-won reputation as a maverick band, pushing against the grain, following their path regardless of what the rest of the world might be up to.  Now, maybe it's time to push against their *own* grain. Maybe it's time to let those ideas fly.... 

The tunestack: 
Atom 
Gravity 
Reset 
The Place 
Void 
No Defect 
Nova 
Victims 
Porno Girl 
Networks 
Drive-In 
Obsession 
Rise 
Eosm 
Fly 
Bodynoise 
Expo 
Pathfinder 

The players: 
Inertia is: 
Reza Udhin: Vocals, programming, keyboards, production 
Alexys B: Vocals, programming, live percussion 

With: 
Andrew Parsonage: keyboards 
Ed Luxmoore: keyboards 
Eddie Tempest: keyboards 

Reviewed by Uncle Nemesis:  http://www.nemesis.to 

Inertia: http://www.inertia.gs 
Cryonica Music, Inertia's label: http://www.cryonica.com