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All Music Guide reviews (Throbbing Gristle)
The following reviews are taken from the website www.allmusic.com - the copyright belongs to AEC One Stop Group. Please visit the All Music site for more information.
SECOND ANNUAL REPORT:
A proper debut of sorts, Second Annual Report includes several versions each (some live) of early Throbbing Gristle standards like "Slug Bait" and "Maggot Death," as well as an "Industrial Introduction" and the soundtrack work "After Cease to Exist." The music is relentless, grinding distortion, only occasionally leavened by vocal samples and percussion. — John Bush
THROBBING GRISTLE:
Forty-two minutes of studio recordings dating from 1979 from the inventors of industrial music, Throbbing Gristle, this self-titled recording appeared in 1986 on Mute Records and exhibits what is arguably the group's most vital period. The dark, abrasive sound pales in comparison to their essential Second Annual Report and Twenty Jazz Funk Greats, but nonetheless, Throbbing Gristle remains an important chapter in their discography, worthy of the attention of hardcore industrial music fans. — Martin Walters
D.O.A.:
Breaking from the live sound of the previous Second Annual Report, D.O.A. finds the group assembling collages of computer noise (before connecting to the internet sounded almost friendly), cassette tapes on fast forward, looped feedback and tape hiss, surreptitiously recorded conversation, threatening phone calls, and much more, all to a grand alienating effect, the sound of a gray day in a British tower block after all the drugs have run out. Of course, this was the intended effect and the band succeed well enough. "Weeping," Genesis P-Orridge's version of a love ballad, loses itself among delayed strings and drones, a barely enunciated vocal, and a violin like a squeaky door. "Hamburger Lady" (about a burn victim) is even more repellent, but in a good way — a genuinely scary listen. "AB/7A," on the other hand, approaches the pulsing electronics of Kraftwerk or early Yello. — Ted Mills
20 JAZZ FUNK GREATS:
It's a break in the clouds from Throbbing Gristle's pummeling noise and a first glimpse at the continuing pop influence on the TG/PTV axis, but 20 Jazz Funk Greats still isn't best described by its title. If there is such a thing as a funky Throbbing Gristle LP, however, this could well be it. "Hot on the Heels of Love," "Hamburger Lady" and "Six Six Sixties" add only occasional bits of distortion between the rigid sequencer lines. 20 Jazz Funk Greats is the best compromise between TG's early industrial aesthetic and the reams of industrial-dance and dark synth-pop groups that used the album as a stepping stone to crossover appeal. — John Bush
AT THE FACTORY, MANCHESTER:
Recorded in a half-full Factory club one evening in May 1979, the quintessential industrial group took no prisoners in a sickly set of noise and verbal torture. The pieces are as bleak and harsh as anything the group recorded on LP, and of the eight tracks on this live CD, their signature piece, "Hamburger Lady," is the only track here previously released. For the greater part, the noise is utterly threatening — a vital recording in the Throbbing Gristle discography if you can track it down (there were numerous cassette releases and LP bootlegs of this recording before the official CD release). — Martin Walters
THE FIRST ANNUAL REPORT:
This legendary recording from Genesis P-Orridge's Throbbing Gristle reached an almost mythical status in the industrial music scene until its belated issue in 2001. So the story goes, the album was recorded in 1975 and was held back by the group, opting to debut with Second Annual Report, the album which established Throbbing Gristle as the primary influence on what would later be termed the industrial music scene in 1977. This seminal recording displays the early abrasive sound of the group from the start with the 18-minute "Very Friendly." This blast of static noise pummels the listener for the best part of 15 minutes, in which Genesis P-Orridge spins a horrifying tale of murder in his deadpan delivery, which is absolutely terrifying. The piece evolves into a tape loop, which Peter Christopherson winds into an incessant mantra for the closing three minutes. It is clear after this brutal introduction that First Annual Report was a milestone in subversive music matched only by Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, which incidentally came out the same year. However, Throbbing Gristle went even further, not just bombarding the listener with electronic noise but with extreme confrontational texts delivered in the most deranged fashion. While the noise may be a little hard to stomach in parts, in others it reaches sublime hypnotic peaks, and in either case First Annual Report is striking in that it is undeniably the most important advent in the roots of industrial music. With Genesis P-Orridge going on to Psychic TV, Peter Christopherson to Coil, and Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti as Chris & Cosey, it is a wonder that it took until 2001 before this recording appeared. Practically every act within industrial music and its offshoots — be it Merzbow, Whitehouse, Ministry, Big Black, or Godflesh — owes an incredible debt to the groundbreaking music of Throbbing Gristle. — Martin Walters
GREATEST HITS:
Genesis P. Orridge was the Frank Zappa of experimental electronic music, exploring virtually every notion and idea of performance that he could possibly muster. And his period with Throbbing Gristle resulted in some of the most dense and difficult music to ever see the light of day, a staggering thought even decades after the band's demise. Turning the idea of rock music on its head and injecting it with a lethal dose of electronica, Gristle was light years ahead of its time and suffered endless persecution from the British government because of their wild ideas. On this ironically titled collection, the band offers 11 tracks that plant the seeds for a number of genres. Synth pop is here in the primal, awkward guise of "Adrenalin," while "Hot on the Heels of Love" may be one of the very first techno songs ever. "Subhuman" would set the standard for the type of ranting industrial rock that Skinny Puppy and Ministry would actually have to water down, and "Six Six Sixties" is the sort of guitar-driven noise narrative which would later find brief popularity with the New York City art rock scene. Elsewhere, punk rises from the dead as a shambling zombie ("Blood on the Floor"); Kraftwerk is reshaped into disco death jazz ("20 Jazz Funk Greats"); "United" paves the way for Orridge's own descent into pop; and the spine-chilling "What a Day" is the closest they could ever come to having a rave-up. Beyond these tracks, everything else sounds like it was recorded on a distant planet hundreds of years ago, blending the primal sludge of early Residents with the demented sonic experiments of Faust and Can. The results range from the eerie and ugly ("Tiab Guls") to the sublimely beautiful ("AB/7A"). This beauty is the primary reason why this band was as good as they were; it was so hard to dismiss the band because these weird hooks and chunks of pop found their way into the harshest noise experiments. Standing heads and tails above the rest of their contemporaries, this is the best place to first discover Throbbing Gristle's difficult but rewarding body of work. Anyone with even a passing interest in unusual and experimental music would do themselves a big favor by checking this out. — Bradley Torreano
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