Searching For The End

Hednoize

Wax Trax! / TVT Records, 1999

http://www.hednoize.com

REVIEW BY: Christopher Thelen

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 05/06/1999

No matter how hard I try to appreciate it, electronic music is still a genre that I have a hard time grasping. It's not that I don't enjoy some of it, it's just that often I'm left scratching my head after the song completes, and I'm asking, "So?"

One such example in my recent past was listening to Hednoize's debut release Searching For The End. It's not that this album is bad in any sense, it's just that I found it very hard to get excited about what I was listening to. Despite having some enjoyable songs, the main emotion I felt after several listens to this disc was boredom - and that's not a good sign.my_heart_sings_the_harmony_web_ad_alt_250

The duo of Daniel Lenz and Free spent three years crafting this album like a sculptor would work on a piece that is supposed to define their career. I'm not saying that the effort doesn't show through; there are a few songs on this disc that I did find myself going back to often. "Army Of One" is one such number, and could well be my favorite on the disc. On this particular song, everything seems to click - the songwriting, the programming, the performance. It's examples like these that should put smiles on Lenz and Free's faces.

But being an album mostly created on computers (with the exception of piano and electric guitar), Searching For The End often sounds very sterile. I would have liked to have heard a little more raw of a performance on songs like "Devil's Train," "Crazy Boy" and "My Machine"; just a little more of a soul injected into these machines could have made a world of difference.

And that's really a shame, because Hedonize possibly represents an oasis in the world of electronica. While other groups like Nine Inch Nails and KMFDM hit the listener over the head with a sonic attack, Hednoize's sound was much more mellow (but still crunching at times), and focused on the song more than the ambient noise they could create. Had the material been a little more intriguing and interesting, Hednoize could have easily been the leaders of a whole new musical adventure. (This isn't to say that they still couldn't be, but now that they've plowed some ground, it's going to be easier for other groups in their style to come through.)

Searching For The End has some moments on it that make it worth the time to listen to the disc. But there are enough times where you'll find yourself wishing the end of the disc would come.

Rating: C

User Rating: Not Yet Rated


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© 1999 Christopher Thelen and The Daily Vault. All rights reserved. Review or any portion may not be reproduced without written permission. Cover art is the intellectual property of Wax Trax! / TVT Records, and is used for informational purposes only.