K.I.F.O.T.H. – Extensive Report

Two uncompromising Slovakian executioners, called to judge and execute an adrift world dominated by capitalism and American imperialism, by global warming problems, electrosmog, lack of water in several countries, overpopulation. They’re K.I.F.O.T.H., an acronym standing for “Kneel In Front Of The Executioner”, one of the many electro-industrial projects born in the early ’90s after the boom of a genre which first generation of artists, such as Leather Strip, Mentallo & The Fixer, X Marks The Pedwalk, Front Line Assembly and, before them, Skinny Puppy, were and are their main influences.

Extensive Report is their new album, released on March 3rd by Italian label EK Product seven long years after the release of Violence Corporation: two works strictly linked one to the other. As suggested by its title, Mir Colon and K-Head have put together an album having a documentary approach, which lyrics aren’t less important than the music. With their sound, they show here to be able to create quite catchy songs characterized by a strong groove, allowing the listener to easily remember them, while alternating fast and syncopated numbers with slower songs.

These two elements, together with hard music and melodic vocals, are the strong points of an album elevating itself above the average quality of the genre, considering we’re not living in its Golden Age. Since the first sounds of Half-side subject, it’s clear that the reason why we’re facing the problems of the modern world is caused by humans thinking about themselves and not about the environment in which they live, destroying their world. “Consumerism is what controls the world of my society – we deplete irreplaceable destroying our environment – we’re losing the joy of little things – driving us into depression”.

The core of Extensive Report is here, between these sentences, told us by an extradiegetic source, as it happens in a war documentary. Theirs is a lesson we wouldn’t listen to, although understanding the seriousness of the matter. We prefer to take a distance from it, deciding to free ourselves from any guilt while putting the blame on the so-called media, an intangible concept. Proxy war focuses around this topic, a song particularly influenced by Mentallo & The Fixer, while 158 minutes is influenced by Front Line Assembly’s albums of the late ’90s, with its engaging and syncopated rhythm. Silence has an EBM feel, always with a melodic touch in the vocal department. Electrosmog has a spacey and light big beat influence, while the slow and synthetic opener is clearly influenced by Skinny Puppy.

The feeling, listening to Extensive Report, is that the Slovakian duo composed all in all simple songs with a quite “light” sound, talking about hard and complex topics. Mir Colon and K-Head have crossed through the ’90s never stopping releasing music, with that fear and, at the same time, emotion towards the new millennium, that has radically changed our world. The Internet revolution on a large scale, the mass use of electronic devices and the related problem of information control and 9/11 represent our world, in which loads of ’90s musicians have lost their convictions, having found something different than expected and having stopped making music.

Now, after having experienced the first phase of these huge revolutions, living once again in a dystopic universe, many electro-industrial projects, in particular those born in the ’90s, are coming back with new albums, feeling the need to express once again their fears, making albums always loyal to the old school formula. K.I.F.O.T.H. are one of these.

Label: EK Product

Rating: 8