I first heard a song entitled ‘Dystopia‘ by Apartment 26 several months ago while reviewing the ‘Heavy Metal FAKK II’ soundtrack. Prior to ‘Hallucinating‘, their debut CD on Hollywood Records, the band put out an indie release called ‘Within‘ on which the song ‘Dystopia’ originally appeared. Impressed by the industrial influences and the band’s programming/sampling abilities, I was anxious to hear more from this relatively new name on the scene. Who knew that ‘Hallucinating‘ would be as equally impressive?
The band was in the studio back in October of last year, working on ‘Hallucinating‘ with producer Ulrich Wild, who has worked with Static-X and Powerman 5000. At that time, the average age of the band members was 19 years old. Nothing like being young and hungry to push you forward into your creativity. Although I don’t know how hungry any of the members of Apartment 26 will ever be. At least one of them comes from highly successful rock n’ roll genetics.
My gut reaction was to instantly seek out similarities to others in the genre. Orgy, Pitchshifter, Fear Factory, and even Ultraspank among others came to mind while listening to Apartment 26. It wasn’t much of a shock to find out that a couple of these bands were actually influences on the band. The Apartment 26 ‘sound’ is highly industrial, electronic, and smacks of that metallic evil disco thing. I dig this shit.
The guitar and bass are heavily and skillfully manipulated by Jon Greasely and Louis Cruden; A.C. Huckvale literally has his hands full with keyboards and sampling duties; and Kevin Temple hypnotically smashes the drums. All the while, Biff Butler croons and whispers in those gravelly tones that stir and coax you into painting mental pictures while you listen to the stories he sings. I listen extra close to ‘Basic Breakdown’ and ‘Doing It Anyway‘.
Apartment 26 will be playing at the Whisky on May 3rd and 4th with Rollins Band. You can also check out the Apartment 26 website at www.apartment26.com, and be sure to look for ‘Hallucinations‘ in stores on May 16th.
Thanks to Hilary Okun at Hollywood Records for the quick reply and the goodies!
Lesa Pence
