AMPSCENT: Ampscent

Release year: 2023
Label: Zoharum

…It smells like a bad pun. And indeed, I do think this is a new low for the bad puns we are wont to use here at Only Death Is Real. But you’ll just have to deal with it. Just like I have to deal with the fact that Polish Ampscent’s debut album is almost entirely outside my comfort zone.

Label Zoharum describes the album as rhythmic industrial/techno, and I suppose that it’s a pretty good description. Even though there’s a lot of stuff that has no rhythm, and the techno isn’t techno in any conventional sense. I mean, no matter how fucked up you are on drugs, you’re not gonna dance to this.

I guess I’ll try to explain the above. Without a speck of doubt, Ampscent fall within the broad spectrum of industrial and post-industrial music. The whole soundscape is decidedly electronic and antimusical in any traditional definition of music. However, the Polihs duo are not about blaring noise and crackling analogue distortion. Quite the contrary, there is a strong digital edge to the rather crisp, clear sound.

And the techno bit is tied to the rhythm: the rhythmic elements – the percussion – has a definite techno edge to it. The sampled drums and other percussive elements are definitely borrowed from electronic dance music. I openly admit I’m no expert on dance, but I’d say by and large the dance element ends in the percussion and how the many of the sound elements sound.

From these building blocks Ampscent build an album of weird, at times rhythmic, electronic industrial. Some tracks veer more towards hard techno soundscapes with a certain industrial noise structure to it under the rhythm, other tracks go for a more abstract and formless, even ambient feel. Structurally, the album certainly isn’t cut from one cloth.

The uniting factor is, then, the sound. Regardless of whether there’s a rhythmic beat or slow-paced ambience, it’s all permeated by the thoroughly digital, crisp and somehow crystalline sound already mentioned. Personally, when it comes to industrial, I prefer a bit more dirt and rust in the sound. Which is not to say that there’s no abrasiveness in Ampscent’s sound, it’s just of a different variety.

At times, the combination of elements from electronic dance music and industrial form an intriguing combination. At other times – mostly when Ampscent goes for rhythmless, ambient atmospherics – things can get quite dull. However, overall, Ampscent certainly falls very much outside my preferences… and doesn’t manage to be quite so good as to make me rethink things.

In other words, Ampscent’s debut leaves me cold. Perhaps open-minded fans or hardcore techno, or aficionados of rhythmic industrial will find this more to their tastes. Personally, I’ll stick to the crusty audial torture of good ol’ power electronics.

Visit Ampscent on their official website or Facebook.