The sound that Milemarker employs on their latest CD “Satanic Versus” lies somewhere between post-hardcore and techno. If you’re not sure how that works, don’t worry; neither does the band.The opener, “Join Our Party,” is an entirely software-composed electronic booty-shaker. The lyrics “We are the people who would like you to know/ That if you can’t see your vision you have nowhere to go/ But don’t fret this is why we called and this is our chant/ The ones who make a difference can dance, dance, dance” evoke thoughts of Karl Marx doing the fox trot. In spite of the fact that this isn’t one of the band’s more political anthems, they still manage to get that message across that only the truly rebellious can get jiggy.
Tracks two, three, and five are more rock inspired epics that were recorded by Steve Albini, who was responsible for producing works from such seminal bands as Nirvana and The Pixies. Unfortunately, no matter how much you spend on recording bad songs, they remain true to form.
The most interesting parts of the album come not from the music itself, but from the other features of the CD. “The Banner to the Sick,” “The New Lexicon,” and “The Installment Plan” are all included on this CD as fully edited live videos. All these videos are of decent quality and include sometimes five or more camera angles. Not only are the videos visually appealing, they also seem to capture the band in their element. While songs seem stylistically jumbled and hopeless coming from headphones, they seem to take shape as the sound emerges from speaker cabinets. The band’s live performances of songs on this CD seem actually to exemplify the energy that they were supposed to be infused with on the recordings.
But the most attention-grabbing feature of the CD by far comes in the form of true audio interactivity. Packaged with the CD come unedited samples the band used to produce the tracks “Join Our Party” and “Idle Hands.” With any audio editing software program, you can take these samples and create your own Milemarker remixes. Puffy should have thought of this years ago! Even if you don’t enjoy the songs that Milemarker produced in this fashion, it’s fun to take a crack at making them interesting.
While I can’t say that all the ideas on this CD are bad, I can say that the execution of them produces an inconsistent product. With more substance and less gimmick, perhaps the band will find a way to make an impact. With the current state of music, however, perhaps electronic political anthems might soon take over the airwaves.