Album review: innerpartysystem – [self-titled]

Opening with the brute force of the well-received “Die Tonight, Live Forever” is a bold move on a début album that shows the hands of a multitude of well-known producers and mixers. Innerpartysystem seem curiously unfocused with a preponderance of slow songs cluttering up the bones of a scorching electro-rock album.

“Heart Of Fire” is sandwiched between the two singles released so far, and its wretched conventionality of arrangement and performance sound warning bells. It’s a rock plod dressed up in electronics that outstay their welcome, and is utterly eclipsed by début single “Don’t Stop” which follows it.

Innerpartysystem aspire to a brooding, prowling and feral electro buzz on their slow songs, but come out sounding like a ‘dangerous’ Madonna remix. “Structure” needs a Gary Numan backing track which is topped by the close-to-the-microphone/half-whispered vocals which have graced a few New Model Army songs (“Nothing Touches”, “Living In The Rose”) rather than the Britney-lite that actually results. “This Empty Love” tries the same trick and fails just as badly. The voice needs to be mixed further up, the strange electronic noises need to be increased and then buried like a mountain under a duvet.

Innerpartysystem sags badly in the middle stretch where the inventiveness and sheer bravado of their singles are jettisoned for a hero-worshipping ‘yes, boss’ acceptance of producer ideas: Stuart Price (Missy Elliott, Gwen Stefani) is quoted as having “killed the production/mixing” on “New Poetry”, and the band apparently mean that positively. Unfortunately, the producer has actually deadened the song into a clunky pop wheeze that lacks any feel or fire.

With talent the calibre of Alan Moulder (Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, Depeche Mode) and Mark ‘Spike’ Stent (The Mission, Goldfrapp, Linkin Park) on board, it’s surprising that innerpartysystem are so pedestrian on occasions. It’s often clear who the production/mixing team are as the songs divide into fast and slow, great and crap… roughly in that order.

“Everyone Is The Same” and “Obsession” plod where they should sprint, and smother keyboards and synthesizers over the backbeat where they should be staggering an over-heated/over-amped, mistreated fuzz-warp of swirling guitars.

But after twenty minutes of padding, “This Town Your Grave” smashes into preconceptions with some work that sounds closer to Fear Factory and The Chaos Engine than the slow grooves that preceded it. Proper guitar riffs, genuine rage in the vocals and a dancefloor-friendly rhythm combine with an inventive song structure that benefits from some radical electronics. Musing on their own small-town upbringing the band again connect with both hedonistic dance fans and introspective Goth-metal gents.

That improvement is shamefully mistreated on “Last Night In Brooklyn” where an antique house keyboard swirl is allied to a breathy and nostalgic plunder through old-time electro rock. Using the same musical template as “This Town Your Grave” is a piece of personal recycling that can’t be pulled off twice on the same album.

“What Will We Never Know” raises expectations about innerpartysystem once again, juddering along effectively with a mournful piano figure shining like ice in sunlight, clouding a laid-back ballad that again lacks serious lyrical content but adds a blatantly singable chorus. The words on the album are rarely clichéd but never truly inspired, and the music spends more time skulking than announcing itself.

“Soundscape” ends innerpartysystem exactly as it describes itself. It doesn’t have the cool grace or the electronic breakdown genius of Nine Inch Nails but it serves its purpose – reminding you that, at their best, innerpartysystem are an industrial electro-Goth nightmare who could slipstream musical styles with searing accuracy.

It’s just a shame that, on a full-length outing like this, the band are hampered by over-used production names and attempt to spread a fantastic EP’s worth of material over the course of a 50 minute album. The Chaos Engine did it better and did it long ago. innerpartysystem could yet follow their unique songwriting path and produce a masterpiece; this isn’t it, although I can hear nightclubs baying at the door for a few of these tunes.

I just wish the promise of the singles was fulfilled on the album. C’est la vie. Makes a bloody good EP though.