What a strange thing the mind is. You can listen to something one time and pass it off as utter junk and move on. Later in life you can revisit that same work and find it to be utterly fascinating.
In the coninuing series of "this used to be too noisy" we have the current exhibit: Protector 101. Killbots is a synthwave album, but it is unlike anything I have ever heard before within the genre. As alluded to previously much of the album is heavily influenced by noise and industrial.
The change is immediatly obvious, E.A.T.R. the first track is a heavy beast of a track. The main pulse driving the song forward is full of distortion and all sorts of muck and mire to dirty it up. As the song progresses so does the chaotic undertones, growing more and more feverish towards the climax of the song before everything dies out at the end.
It's not just that the song is noisy or that it takes influence from early industrial acts from the 80's... it marries this with the synth work that P101 is known for, and the marriage works exceptionally well here. The melody is there but muted, its drowned out by the beat and chaos going on underneath. You have to search for it, weed it out from the interferance. It's a visceral experiance trying to do this, and also exchillerating.
That's not to say that all the tracks are in this new harsher style. Artificial Consent is a pure synthwave track that offers a break from the heavily beat driven tracks of Figures and Hardware. Other breaks are found throughout the album, making this an exceptionally well paced record.
P101 hasn't released anything since Killbots in 2019 (to my knowledge) and that's a shame. Experimentation like this within the synthwave scene is pretty lacking, seeing something this raw and primitive get released is something I would love to see more of.
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