You know that Geico caveman commercial where the caveman goes “Yeah, I have a response..uh…What?”-that’s my response to this album.

First off, this Italian band actually has no name or moniker but goes by the logo of a face, much like Prince, the name ‘Illogo’ is merely used for identification purposes and in their own words ‘Illogo is the way the band appeals the image representing the name’, and allows them to be found and contacted on the web. Er…..OK.

Anyhow, however pretentious the ‘name’ issue is, the music here is pretty interesting. It’s a sort of ambient, post rock, industrial/electronica mix that’s hard to pigeonhole. When Liquid Stays Dry is weird and almost unclassifiable, but at the same time somewhat engaging and challenging in a sea of cookie cutter, genre hugging metal.

Caustic black shrieks layer over angular, dissonant droning and programming, with little or no structure. Allegedly the band’s music is mostly improvised, with some after recording touching up in the studio. The 10 tracks are kind of hard to dissect individually, as they cover a whole gamut of but tis mostly to ebbing, discordant layered riffs with various effects and vocal rasps, shouts and growls (“Retina-Scan”, “When Liquids Stay Dry”, “Krome Anagram And Silver Bodies”, “Stellar”, “Logica”) to short bursts of caustic, FX (and sometimes saxophone) littered blackened prose (“Inaudita Altera Parte”, “Agonia Della Intenzioni”) and some simple industrial programming and samples (“Ogiva”, “Impercettibile”, “Cenere”).

It could come across as Yakuza meets Circle Takes the Square meets DHG meets Isis meets Japanese Torture Comedy Hour meets Jean Michele Jarre. It’s truly bizarre but again, somewhat original if disjointed and a ‘hard’ listen. However, it’s also one of the most unque listening experiences I have had all year.

I’m pretty sure I haven’t done a good job of either selling this album or putting readers off completely or even summing up exactly what it is. I can only recommend you head over to http://www.illogo.net/web/index.php and figure it this mysterious three piece entity for yourself. Truthfully, I’m still trying….

[Visit the band's website]

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