Genre: Techno

01 People Killing People
02 Game Called Life
03 Decapitation of the Nation
04 Cooler Than Genocide

Experiment Haywire began in 2004 as a means of expressing themes of “war, political dissent, female empowerment, and a post-apocalyptic future”. Previously E.H. has had a track released on the Women Reclaim the Noise compilation and a collection of songs entitled World War 23 produced.

I've given this CD a good number of listens struggling to find something positive to say about it. Over the months I've been working for Heathen Harvest I've made a point of finding something good to say about every release I've reviewed. With this CD I've met my greatest challenge. The CD opens with People Killing People. It sounds like the softer end of 80's EBM or perhaps even late 80's House/early 90's techno. The simplistic rhyming couplet lyrics could have been written by a 14 year old and the vocal delivery is half-hearted. Without the vocal line this could work as a club track mixed into a DJ set.

Unfortunately this pattern continues for the rest of the CD. Most of the music may work on its own, though I think it could stand a bit more work to give it a harder/harsher edge. The vocals and lyrics are the main let down.

The liner notes mention some influences of which Atari Teenage Riot is the only one I can hear on this disc (in the vocal delivery of Decapitation of the Nation). Another listed influence is Einsturzende Neubauten, which doesn't come across at all.

It's been a while since I last heard some Experiment Haywire but I'm sure I remember it being more hardcore than this CD. I think with some work Experiment Haywire could develop a reasonable sound. Radically changing the vocals and lyrics, or scrapping them completely, and developing a harsher sound to fit the themes she claims to explore, would do wonders. Until those changes are made, I feel there is much better work out there to explore.