 
Dante's Kitchen
2004
CD
Big Blue Records
John Marshall
14 November 2004 American label for this release is Invisible Records http://www.invisiblerecords.com. electronic industrial atmospheric | Attrition have been around since the early eighties. The man behind Attrition is Martin Bowes who is joined on here by female guest vocalists who have worked with him over the years.
Attrition first came to my attention on the "Bullshit Detector 3" compilation on Crass Records. Despite being one of my favourite tracks on that LP I never really followed it up. This, the latest release, sounds quite different to that early track although you can still see elements of the latter in here. Martin's vocals here are kind of rough and whispery reminding me of Orson Wells! I was a bit unsure about them but as it goes on I grew to like them. The female vocals on here range from spoken to classical-style singing, all sounding excellent. The whole thing is a good blend of electronic industrial and really dark classical goth styles all blended really well. There's lots of funky bass on here reminding me of Cabaret Voltaire. It is repetitive but in a positive way. Each track kind of builds upon the previous one adding more power as it goes on. At times this record is intensely captivating like on 'Feed The Crow' which is extremely dark with its eerie violin which is soon greeted with some analogue electronics which sounds fantastic. 'The Long Hall' is another amongst the ten excellent songs which grabbed my attention the most. It has a fast powerful beat to which female vocals howl nicely over the top. The last track 'Still Life?' features some rain on the end. Like many other recordings it made me wonder if it was the record or whether it was actually raining outside!
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