The Project Hate
Cybersonic Superchrist
Pavement
A project featuring Entombed bassist Jorgen Sandstrom on vocals, the Project Hate and their debut album, Cybersonic Superchrist, are yet another addition to an ongoing series of cookie-cutter goth-tinged death-metal bands. No doubt influenced by the likes of Tiamat, Crematory, and Samael, The Project Hate can capably groove and grind (the latter term relating more to guitar intensity than mere tempo), the whole of their lushly keyboard-drenched aesthetic stomping n’ sashaying in a matter fitting for such grandly gutted content. Also, like many of their (second-tier) contemporaries, the trio prominently features a female vocalist, Mia Stahl; however, where other such vocalists would usually coo like a dark harpy of the night, Stahl somehow finds a soulful balance between Billie Holiday and Siouxsie Sioux, a striking (but familiar) foil to Sandstrom’s sandpaper growling.
But “second-tier” and “familiar” are the operative words here: Though flashes of ingenuity (e.g., the sumptuously sorrowful piano ‘n’ break-beat breakdown in “Selfconstructive Once Again”) crop up here and there, Cybersonic Superchrist still swims in the shallow end of the death n’ doom pool, those flashes looking more like one-trick ponies than an actual aesthetic directive. Granted, the Project Hate will ingratiate themselves quite nicely to fans of the genre, but if the trio are ever going to stand taller than the as-of-late burgeoning scene, a slight re-tooling is in order the next time ‘round.
Pavement Music, P.O. Box 50550, Phoenix, AZ 85076; http://www.pavementmusic.com
