SURGYN-Vanity CD

The one thing I'd not hearduntil now from the Scottish (unsigned) Scene was good old, classic industrial dancefloor – Hanney are close but they're in a league of their own – but now comes the duo that Is Surgyn – and they've produced a debut album that's right up there in the ranks of the finest of bands to have come out of Germany (where this stuff is massive) and the UK. With the sampled intro, they launch into “Sever” and never look back. Immediately you hear huge beefy electronic and electro-percussive beats, swathes of synthesizers filling ever crevice of the mix with sound, monumental bass, and endless ea of synth melodies and right out front vocals that sound like a much more streetwise and wildly raw version of The Pet Shop Boys, all of which taken as a whole, gets you right where it counts as you not only leap about the place like a loony but listen to it with a razor-sharp intensity, savouring every thudding beat, every bit of the booming bass, the widescreen synths and the angry/anguished/menacing vocals. There's no need for a track-by-track rundown here – what I've just described is, to al intents and purposes, what the majority of the album is all about. With added samples, more variety of melodies running through its veins and a jackhammer surge of rhythms and beats, song after glorious song rampages into your skull with the effectiveness of a hammerblow, yet, above all of this, there are songs – songs that are hypnotic, songs that make you think, songs that just explode into your consciousness, and songs that are delivered absolutely spot on for this type of music. For its genre, this has to be one of the finest complete albums around right now and, for a new band, you have to say it's right up there with the greats of the decades gone by, and that's no mean feat on what is a consistent, powerful, superbly played, arranged, sung and produced debut album.

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