Sister Cell – Philosopher’s Stone
Sister Cell – Philosopher’s Stone
Self-Released
Release Date: 03/05/23
Running Time: 19:04
Review by Dark Juan
8/10
Good evening. My name is Dark Juan, and I am here to entertain and edify you with my thoughts about many things, all dressed up as a record review. It is my duty to inform and educate you about the music I am listening to and to put the fear of God into the editorial team and especially Rory Bentley, as none of them have even the slightest idea where my thoughts will take me and frequently whether or not it will be a) actionable, b) too perverse to print or c) no-one will fucking understand what I am talking about, which happens far too often for my liking. Mrs Dark Juan is listening to a podcast about the Black Dahlia Murder and making fabric brooches for a French dance troupe. We no longer live in France. She just told me about a dream she had last night about living back in France, except the garden is a bit outré, insofar as the garden is resting upon a moving and possibly aggressive layer of albino reptiles and snakes.
No, I haven’t asked. And neither am I going to. My mind is fucked enough without having to rationalise Mrs Dark Juan’s brainspace as well.
Nevertheless, there is a purpose to this rampant scribbling, and that is to bring you news of one of my favourite modern American Industrial projects has released a new 6-track EP. Sister Cell is the work of the inimitable Isabella Chains – a most charming person indeed, and Dark Juan has been a fan since he first heard Sister Cell (then known as Null Cell) several years ago. Isabella is also a totally charming person, too. Let us get the infamous and extremely sexy Platter Of Splatter™ up to the correct operating velocity and sling “Philosopher’s Stone” upon it and see whether Sister Cell will evoke the same twisted sexual metaphors that so traumatised Rory Bentley as when I recently reviewed They Watch Us From The Moon.
The record opens with ‘Witch Field Encounter’, a short intro with stabby keyboards and a bit of creepy atmosphere building before it segues into a comic book romp through serial killer mythos and Alice Cooper vocal worship over synthetic beats and buzzsaw electronics and heavily produced guitar not unlike the ultra-heavy beat deluxe of KMFDM on ‘Hammer Horror’. Until the last ten seconds where Isabella just fucking turns everything up to max and leaves it there.
‘Terminal Earth’ is next, and it is a slowly pulsating, beeping and squelching number that is very reminiscent of the late and great Skinny Puppy. It wriggles in a kind of maggot-like writhe, and has a sort of oozing, decomposing groove about it with some discordance to set your teeth on edge and make you uncomfortable. Which is a compliment, by the way. As if you’d think it would be otherwise.
The mood of the record changes again on ‘Steel Sarcophagus’, with a very 80s feeling electronic motif being kicked in the teeth with some choppy and deliberately crude-sounding guitar and a vocal that is as lascivious as it is sneering and Punky. It is a cold and alienating sound on this song. Freezingly so. Imagine Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark getting violently pegged by KMFDM and Marilyn Manson. At least one of those people is believable for the pegging aspect of that metaphor. With added Industrial clanging. In a giant freezer.
A remix of ‘Texas Chainsaw’ then slams a playful fist into your guts with a cheesy drunken grin and starts violently moshing in front of you waving its bottle of beer about. The kind of riff Joe Satriani used to love fucking about with underpins a violent, yet disturbingly sexy Industrial overture to the love of using petrol-powered horticultural devices in one of the Southernmost states of America. But the perpetrator of this song is by no means an arborist. Oh no. He/she/they does an entirely different kind of pruning and not of trees either. It’s a fun dance-a-thon around a bit of friendly serial murder. Which is entirely the kind of thing Dark Juan does for fun, when we are not defiling virgins or pissing on fragments of the True Cross, or mourning now departed little dogs with personalities a million times bigger than they should have had considering their physical size.
The EP closes with ‘Cruel (Sensation Mix)’ which returns to a more droning, electronic soundscape with a sinuous, predatory quality in Isabella’s singing and Eastern-sounding synths breaking up the drone and giving the whole song a kind of mutated Duran Duran vibe – in fact through the outro (apart from some spasmodic guitar screeching over it) Dark Juan’s mind kept wandering to ‘Shout’ for some unaccountable reason. Do not take this wrongly. Dark Juan is a rabid and enthusiastic fan of all manner of 80s electronica and to have Sister Cell set off this kind of link inside the lump of diseased grey meat in my head is a Very Good Thing indeed.
However, this is by no means a perfect record and as much as I admire Isabella and value her friendship, I am here to be a critic and a critic I will be. There are (thankfully few) moments I don’t enjoy when the vocals sit too far forward in the mix – this especially obvious on ‘Hammer Horror’. Otherwise, everything is as it should be. Sister Cell’s sound has evolved, but not to an unrecognisable degree and I am as big a fan as I have always been, especially for the stonking remix of ‘Texas Chainsaw’ which is chock-full of cheerful, danceable serial murder.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System™ awards Sister Cell 8/10 for “Philosopher’s Stone” as it is a fun, solid EP and it has ‘Texas Chainsaw’ on it.
Take care of yourselves, and each other.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Witch Field Encounter
02. Hammer Horror
03. Terminal Earth
04. Steel Sarcophagus
05. Texas Chainsaw (Rechained Mix)
06. Cruel (Sensation Mix)
LINE-UP:
Isabella Chains – Absolutely fucking everything. I am unworthy.
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
