Pretty Addicted - It All Stems From Childhood
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Off the DWA label, that re-released their début album; sponsored largely by a Kickstarter campaign; on the back of some tumultuous line-up changes and health issues, Vicious Precious returns as Pretty Addicted with semi-conceptual sophomore release It All Stems From Childhood. More concise and driven by self reflective lyricism, the extrovert content of this follow up appears to be more mature and thoughtful, but musically does not aspire to reach outside of the standards of harsh, club-destined electro commodity.
The opening track is perplexing when dissected within the context of Pretty Addicted's dark, EBM material from Filth. The thick and heavy layer of cacophonous sounds makes for a demented and nightmarish atmosphere but does little to sustain listener's attention. As an extrapolation of dark and twisted mental state that gave birth to it, "It All Stems From Childhood" is adequately bent out of shape, a lump of a musical entity that scares (and scars) with its barrage of distorted synths and hisses but does not gel into a coherent whole up until the last, more melodic and haunting, minute.
From lullaby samples to innocent laughter, the inner shell of tracks like "Scapegoat" or "Into the Abyss" is made up of emotional honesty and melodic passages that run in parallel to some run of the mill 4 by 4 beats.
Precious' vocal remains another constant, unifying the record from track to track in an increasingly monotonous manner. While the music in and of itself never truly requires a change of the caustic, angst-ridden delivery of the lyrics, if Vicious were to facilitate this need to diversify the experience It All Stems From Childhood would definitely make for less of a chore when absorbed domestically.
"Mania", that prior to the release of the album was used as a teaser of its content, is by far the bounciest and most enjoyable fragment of the entire nightmarish landscape of PA's second effort. It easily slips into the beat overdrive that has the tempo escalate and the verbal ego-trip intensify from words to shrieks. This self applied exorcism, surprisingly, works as a dance-floor fodder and might make the play-list of many a DJ.
Without any further stand out moments It All Stems From Childhood fails to provide as much catharsis to the listener as it surely did to PA's sole mastermind. Always one step away from something much bolder than, presented here, cross between uncompromising industrial and club alternative ("Monkeys in Space") but also constantly, dangerously close to jarringly dissonant ("Filthy Whore Mouth"), Pretty Addicted did not fully grow up just yet.
At once demented, dark and obscenely harsh, this latest release from Precious is a satisfying extension of her 'fuck shit up and leave' ethos, enriched by the palpable commitment to the childhood trauma, shared, to a varying degree, by so many of us. As a purely musical statement however It All Stems From Childhood only occasionally shows symptoms of artistic growth and one time to many dissolves into mundane or intolerable industrial mediocrity.
Tracklist:
01. It All Stems From Childhood
02. Scapegoat
03. Mania
04. Into The Abyss
05. Monkeys In Space
06. Circus Of The Depraved
07. Can't Bare To Look
08. See No Future
09. Filthy Whore Mouth
10. KidRave
11. See You On The Other Side Interlude
12. See You On The Other Side
The opening track is perplexing when dissected within the context of Pretty Addicted's dark, EBM material from Filth. The thick and heavy layer of cacophonous sounds makes for a demented and nightmarish atmosphere but does little to sustain listener's attention. As an extrapolation of dark and twisted mental state that gave birth to it, "It All Stems From Childhood" is adequately bent out of shape, a lump of a musical entity that scares (and scars) with its barrage of distorted synths and hisses but does not gel into a coherent whole up until the last, more melodic and haunting, minute.
From lullaby samples to innocent laughter, the inner shell of tracks like "Scapegoat" or "Into the Abyss" is made up of emotional honesty and melodic passages that run in parallel to some run of the mill 4 by 4 beats.
Precious' vocal remains another constant, unifying the record from track to track in an increasingly monotonous manner. While the music in and of itself never truly requires a change of the caustic, angst-ridden delivery of the lyrics, if Vicious were to facilitate this need to diversify the experience It All Stems From Childhood would definitely make for less of a chore when absorbed domestically.
"Mania", that prior to the release of the album was used as a teaser of its content, is by far the bounciest and most enjoyable fragment of the entire nightmarish landscape of PA's second effort. It easily slips into the beat overdrive that has the tempo escalate and the verbal ego-trip intensify from words to shrieks. This self applied exorcism, surprisingly, works as a dance-floor fodder and might make the play-list of many a DJ.
Without any further stand out moments It All Stems From Childhood fails to provide as much catharsis to the listener as it surely did to PA's sole mastermind. Always one step away from something much bolder than, presented here, cross between uncompromising industrial and club alternative ("Monkeys in Space") but also constantly, dangerously close to jarringly dissonant ("Filthy Whore Mouth"), Pretty Addicted did not fully grow up just yet.
At once demented, dark and obscenely harsh, this latest release from Precious is a satisfying extension of her 'fuck shit up and leave' ethos, enriched by the palpable commitment to the childhood trauma, shared, to a varying degree, by so many of us. As a purely musical statement however It All Stems From Childhood only occasionally shows symptoms of artistic growth and one time to many dissolves into mundane or intolerable industrial mediocrity.
Tracklist:
01. It All Stems From Childhood
02. Scapegoat
03. Mania
04. Into The Abyss
05. Monkeys In Space
06. Circus Of The Depraved
07. Can't Bare To Look
08. See No Future
09. Filthy Whore Mouth
10. KidRave
11. See You On The Other Side Interlude
12. See You On The Other Side
