Blitzkrieg Baby – Porcus Norvegicus CD Neuropa 2013

Blitzkrieg Baby is the twisted industrial music project of Kim Solve, who perhaps at this point in time is more recognised for his graphic design work for a range of underground labels, bands and associated music scenes.  Nevertheless ‘Porcus Norvegicus’ – being debut album for Blitzkrieg Baby – demonstrates Kim is extremely talented in creative fields beyond just graphic design and visual arts.

When relying on the term ‘industrial’ to describe Blitzkrieg Baby, it must be understood this is used in a relatively loose capacity, as the range of genre cues and influences presented on the CD are certainly diverse.  Maybe making comparisons to aspects of Coil, Laibach, and NON will give an impression of the musical diversity on display here.   There is also a dark cinematic quality to many of the compositions which play out as if being the soundtrack to an imaginary horror/ suspense styled film.

Album opener ‘First Movement, First Kill’ has a certain apocalyptic tone which leans heavily on a tense cinematic orchestral sound, with its martial brass, booming timpani and shrill horror strings.  Alternately ‘Pig Boy’ is a superb militant industrial track, which is built on a heavy pounding beat/ marching snare, disharmonic string/ brass wails and aggressive screamed vocals.  Although an extremely short piece, the fantastically titled ‘Disneyfied, delirious and HIV+’ delivers  a short ditty of a track constructed with up-tempo classical string samples to generate a weird carnivalesque vibe, which is total antithesis to the prior pieces.  Alternately the following pair of tracks ‘Incinerator Symphony’ and  ‘Stalker’ deliver further soundtrack worthy industrial/ neo-classical compositions, with pounding percussion, twisted violins and horns of doom providing a suitably tense and anxiety inducing tone.  ‘Fuck Me Like You Hate Me’ differs quite significantly from the material which proceeds it, by virtue its monotonous grinding militant industrial beat and verse/ chorus/ verse yelled vocals, thus making it one of the more song oriented pieces.  ‘Children In Uniform’ is also another song oriented track, but here delivers a skewed industrial piece with layered marching snares, sporadic orchestral elements and vocals with a politically rally cry type quality.  Another stand out track is the late album piece ‘Slasher’, that with a solid dose of angular strings and pompous percussive backing draws a passing comparison to the musical works of fellow countryman WHEN and their brand of abstract experimental and orchestral weirdness (…which is obviously meant as a total compliment).

Beyond the prevalent dark soundtrack type sound which is infused within most compositions, interestingly there is also a perverse and sly aspect of humour which underscores the album’s atmosphere.  This is something akin a knowing wink which highlights that Blitzkrieg Baby is not all ultra serious doom and gloom, which certainly gives the album an aesthetic sensibility not often found within such music.  With reference to packing and presentation, as would be expected its design is impeccable, being presented as a mini gatefold card cover with 12 page booklet.  Ultimately ‘Porcus Norvegicus’  (translating to ‘Norwegian Pig’ perhaps?!) is a smart, sophisticated and expertly executed album, which certainly stands on its own within the current ‘industrial’ scene.