Nowadays, we read about amazing groups that have just emerged and are already capable of making your hair stand on end with the visions they produce. If only we had the time machine fancifully invented by H.G. Wells! We would be able to travel through the years searching for what we've missed due to our lack of attention to the musical phenomenon. Going back to 1992, we would quickly pocket this album, as swift as the pickpockets in Forcella, and putting it to spin in the compact player would give us great satisfaction seeing our hair spike like the back of a porcupine.

Regarding navigation, at the beginning of the nineties, the space adventure of the spacecraft Loop ended; that black-clad London trio who forced you for an entire album and/or concert to crouch with your head in your hands resting on your knees to receive the flow of the sonic mantra directed at the cerebral cortex. After the guitarist commander Robert Hampson disembarked, the other two members of the crew, the Mackay/Wills rhythm section, decided to continue the journey not so much towards space but delving into horror like captain Willard's motorboat along the river in search of Colonel Kurtz. In the venture, in addition to the synth setup, they recruited a less imposing guitarist than the talented Hampson (Nigel Webb, former Savage Opera), because the Hair & Skin Trading Co. project was to set off multiple percussive traps to capture the raw material necessary for the preparation of sonic concoctions.

The Company was ready for its expedition to hell under a gray sky like a TV screen tuned to a dead channel. Starting with the litany "...some people deserve to die" on a slow doom rhythm means putting your hands forward: abandon all hope, you who enter! Neil Mackay, rather than singing, rolls out disturbing images, the drums mark a tribal and solemn pace, the bass follows skewed and mighty lines, the guitar goes from pure noise to tortured harmonic structures.

How can you not rush back in your mind to a bunch of German freaks who in 1970 were already light years ahead? The difference is that here there is no irony like in the Czukay & Co. company. Indeed, the ten final minutes of "Pipeline" are an anguished run under an acid rain derived from the melting of psychedelic glaciers destined to fuel strange cybernetic mutations. Just as chromosomal metallic grafts are found in tracks like "Flat Truck" and electroblues deviations in "Torque"; disturbing dub bass lines govern "Monkies" and tribal war calls corroded by the synth spur on "Kak"; a hallucinogenic ticket for purely underground trips is detached in "Where's Gala" while the one for the electro dance disco is picked up in "Ground Zero" or in "$1000 Pledge", made of funky seismic shocks in unison with the percussive slashes.

In the end, it doesn't even seem strange that the hallucination leads us to find Ennio Morricone's trio melted in the blues furnace of "The Final Nail"...the creaking of the heavy drill digging the well to find oil acts as a metronome to the razor-like slide cuts of the guitar.

Once back in 2009, you'll discover with disappointment that this album is not considered by anyone. Don't care and follow the indication given by Arcimboldo's fantastic portrait on the cover: ACCURATE PLAYBACK ACHIEVED ONLY AT HIGH VOLUME.

Watch your hair.

Tracklist and Videos

01   Elevenate (03:36)

02   Flat Truck (03:29)

03   Torque (04:38)

04   Monkies (03:24)

05   KAK (04:47)

06   Where's Gala (04:24)

07   Ground Zero (03:13)

08   $1000 Pledge (06:02)

09   The Final Nail (05:13)

10   PIPELINE (09:58)

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