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I Wear the Mask
Artist: Jagged Doctrine
Label: Side A Records (Indie)
Length: 55:00 minutes /14 Tracks

Red (sample)

Jagged Doctrine is a two man industrial-metal band from Ohio. Distorted guitars, drum machine beats, sound samples, and processed vocals are the main ingredients for most of the songs. They do stray a bit from this during the instrumentals, where they try a more ambient sound, and on the song "Red," which is cover of a Dead Artist Syndrome tune. Some of the riffs are catchy, and some of the samples are nifty, but the net effect is overly simplistic songs, which to get bogged down in repetition. The vocals, which are a low monotone drone with distortion, tend to be the main focus on many of the songs. They are fairly loud in the mix and the music tends to end up being somewhat of an industrial-sounding backdrop.

I don't mean to sound completely negative. This band has some good ideas and they excel on instrumental pieces, on which their creativity is tapped to a larger degree, since there are no vocals to take the main attention.

The lyrics are not included, but are somewhat decipherable, and consist of seemingly angry sentiments, self criticism, and "shocking" statements such as "I hate you in Jesus name." In other words, typical "Christian industrial" lyrics, for the most part.

Though some of the songs begin to grow on you, overall, Jagged doctrine doesn't come up with anything new or innovative.

Chris King 11/25/99

 

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