Cold Fusion - Simmetria (2007)

The begging of ‘Simmetria’ is a completely visual experience. It is as if a postindustrial world developed through ones eyes. The marching background, the broken beats splashed through the middle, bells, synthesized vocals and longing notes… One can almost feel the dead sand crunching under their feet while a city full of smoke, smog and fire unfolds in the valley below. Definitely this composition could become a soundtrack for some apocalyptic movie

‘One’ moves the pace higher up and introduces many new elements, move percussion, better-defined background voices and vibrant energy surrounding every blow. It takes a small step back to then be lounged forward with a reciting martial voice. The short seconds that include the voice recall late 80s industrial artists, transforming the song 180º into a crude wry line. Not to worry, for ‘Palace of Illusions’ comes in a grandiloquent epic way, with many female chorus voices and a steady trumpet line that gives the song a strong bellicose spirit – something that is encountered so obviously for the first time in the record at this moment. This statement is a perfect testimony of the different ranges found in the record.

‘Simmetria’ is Marcin Bachtiak’s fifth long play. Personally I think it is one of the most complete and variable. Obviously it can’t be compared to their previous work, ‘ORP Orzel’, which was absolutely thematic, oppressive and evolving. This new record is wider ranging, and it is also much wilder than what we had heard in the collaboration with Stahlwerk 9 and Rukkanor. Throughout its development, Cold Fussion takes the listener into different worlds, from the hectic martial sound to old school experimental industrial to a calm and gelid dark ambient.

The turning of a page comes with ‘Distant Impression’. The atmosphere is darker, claustrophobic at times. Every single detail comes sharply into light: the creeks, the clashes, the drum rolls, the hanging piano notes… This is not the end of the attack, though, and ‘Blue is the Flag’ proves itself worthy of the battlefield with its pulsating pace and martial spirited melodies. The reciting voice returns once again, as it appeared in ‘One’ yet in a much more story-telling way. Sort of as it was an epic adventure being composed, unfolding as it was being told. It shifts the record once again, as if the diversity in sings were weaving themselves together.

With ‘Into the Depth’ the atmosphere is the main character. The song pulsates and is full of contrasts: a light clear melody is crushed by the strong beat, the heavenly voices are surrounded by alarm cries and the entire song has a very rhythmical industrial feeling to it. It ends suddenly and is trapped in the absorbing epic spirit of ‘...And They Kept Marching’. At first I wasn’t attracted this song, I though it was too full of sound, too exaggerated, too baroque. Until I listened closely to the song as a whole: the threatening alarm is combined skillfully with a unique sense of apathy brought by the clearly digital construction. The voice is clearer than in previous songs, and the lyrics are highly understandable. ‘Simmetria’ follows, with a very complex start, bringing to mind some IDM or rhythmic industrial artists with the use of the pads and distortion in the synthesizer, yet it manages to remain in a midpoint between epic and avant-garde.

After the bizarre pause that ‘Simmetria’ becomes, ‘Melencolia’ appears. Including a sophisticated base line with intertwining percussion elements, the atmosphere flickers around them and a ghostly piano melody appears flightily. ‘Cold and Forgotten’ is a much more haunting composition. The sounds again speckle and disappear with the flicker of an eye. The guitar notes are like a backbone, as if they where the light in a dark industrial cement tunnel, with dark shadows menacing outside the light’s sphere. The entire song is organic, as if the machinery noises were breathing. The song becomes less menacing and more intimate as it grows. To close, ‘Sleepless Thoughts’ bring a surprising oriental spirit that had been flirted with in previous moments through the voice introductions. The sounds are crystalline, and crash into the song as drops. With the background noise, the sound of cables shaking in the wind comes to mind.

‘Simmetria’ has ups and downs, but as a whole it is a masterpiece, a canvas where the desperate wildness of Dubuffet mingles with the crude drawings of Bacon and Goya, under the wings of Devyatkin or Eisenstein. Cold Fusion’s composer can be proud – he himself has made War Office Propaganda climb another notch in the list of classic labels to admire.

Review taken from Heathen Harvest.

01 - Lost Anger
02 - One
03 - Palace of Illusions
04 - Distant Impression
05 - Blue is the Flag
06 - Into the Depth
07 - And They Kept Marching
08 - Simmetria
09 - Melencolia
10 - Cold and Forgotten
11 - Sleepless Thoughts

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