Synapscape. So What

After many excellent compilation appearance, Synapscape, one of the leading band of the Ant-Zen label, finally return with their third album, the "So What" double-CD. One disc for the violent tracks, one disc for the calm ones, a video, great artwork... Let's open it.
Synapscape is one of the few band in the industrial scene who use vocals on almost every track (in fact, on every fast one), as well as a structure of songs taken more from the electro scene than from techno. This personal style, which gives them the possibility to both use very interesting sounds and catchy songs. The result is very body-oriented, in the way the beats and the rhythms are both very danceable or trance-inductive. May Front 242 not have used this term, Synapscape's music could be called "electro body music" and, all in all, it may be the most electro act of the current rhythm noise scene.
Excellent examples of this are featured on the first disc of "So What". It features somes of the best songs this very talented duo has written, the title track, "I know you know" or the very catchy "I want to". On these songs, Synapscape manages to combines both actual singing (with a melody and a rhyhtm) to very well written industrial rhythms. These tracks are jewels for the electro scene, and bring something new to the industrial genre, since they mix the innovation of industrial with the (relative) easy listening of electro dance.
With "So What", Synapscape have a feeling that seems new to me in this scene. With such a title (reminding of many punk songs and attitude) as well as with the booklets photos (very cinematographic, and without any actual link to the music of the CD), Synapscape becomes... noise punks? Anyway, they bring tons of energy into their music, with angry vocals and attitude instead of only ultra distorted beats.
The second CD is less violent but stays in the same movement, focusing on very catchy rhythms combined with dark samples (for example on "Communication", with some very creepy dialogs). As soon as you actually listen to Synapscape's music, it is very difficult to escape it. It contains an important live feeling, another dimension which is very often forgotten by rhythmic noises bands.
The video for the calm but efficient "New Order" is a good use of some industrial clichés: insects, surgery, an individual walking in a crowd and digital effects. The results is good. The quality of the image is good, the video is well cut and fits the music very well. On the other hand, bands like Synapscape may need another type of video if they want to get broadcasted by video channels. This work is almost pro, but it may still be a bit too much into the overused industrial symbolic.
I would say that the only flaw of "So What" is being a bit too long. 22 songs are a lot, most of all when at least half of them are excellent. A shorter CD would maybe have been more efficient, since the songs would be more easy to part. But this CD is still a great piece of work, a must buy for anybody into dark music and one of my favorite releases of 1999.

tracklist rough disc one:
fever dream, so what, new order, i know you know, 7th sect, lights, soul, picklenash, facewalk, spill, i want to, discorrode, 2nd sect, bloodfake, my father was a farmer
 

tracklist quiet disc two:
physics, scoptic, beauty farm, communication, black dream, eat me, surveillance + new order (videotrack)