Download - Furnace

Simply one of the best industrial CD's ever. Each track is so unique, especially when it was released, that you can't help but feel your ripping off the artists by only listening to this once per sitting.

"Stone Grey Soil" and "Attalal" are such great tracks to relax to, while "Sigesang" and "Mother Sonne" make you want to hit the dance floor with a chainsaw. I love the 4th track, Cannaya, best simply for the fact that I feel it should be in a horror movie soundtrack. The beats change 4 times during the whole song and each one sticks in your brain far after the CD is over.

Download (cEvin Key & Phill Western) was still Key's side project outside Skinny Puppy. Indeed, this release was produced as the Puppies were trying to come to grips with the loss of fellow Puppy Dwayne Goettel (who also worked on this project) and the general bitterness between Key and Ogre was peaking. The album itself pretty much resembles a Skinny Puppy release, there isn't much to suggest it's Key's sonic baby. However, on tracks like 'Noh Man's Land' and 'Attalal' there are mushy trippy breakbeats that trudge along mixing with other elements to produce some really groovy and dark triphop stylings. 'Omnidawn' (nothing to do with Mike Oldfield) has a hard 4/4 house beat that snakes in and out of layers of dark industrial stabs and Genesis P-Orrridge soundbytes.
The 'Seele-Hole' track may appeal to fans of SP at their more experimental, it's dark disjointed passages threaten to fall apart at any moment. All in all, 'Furnace' isn't a totally individual work and it's not the most cohesive release, in this listener's opinion; but it definitely shows promise that would become evident on Download's 'Stanley Pain' follow-up release.