Brandon Ashley is to the darkwave scene what Lady Gaga is to the gay club scene. He’s taken an aesthetic that’s been developed in a very small, very underground setting over the course of two decades and put it into a formula that both showcases obvious parts of his influences while rarely deviating from a pop structure. The end result is a very well crafted dance album with a built in market. Ashley claims to take influence from the glamour of David Bowie and Lou Reed, but his persona isn’t quite as well developed. That comment is made less in jest and more in quiet constructive criticism considering Ashley’s solo career is still in its infancy. His sound is unique enough to set him apart for music fans, but the mainstream may confuse him for just another Marilyn Manson. Admittedly, his sound and style have a lot in common with Manson’s approach towards music after mostly leaving his rock sound with Mechanical Animals. However, there is enough substance on Ashley’s new album, Nightmare Factory 82, for me to give him the benefit of the doubt.
The opener on Nightmare Factory 82 is the obvious hit “My Decadent Thursday”, which is a dancy mix of straight 4/4 mechanical drumming with a myriad of well produced synth sounds soaring over each other in the background. The calm, understated verse falls into a pre-chorus before jumping into a rousing, commercial sounding, sing-along chorus. It’s an old trick, but sometimes it’s just the trick. This is a raunchy sounding club hit and could be marketed as such with ease. Opening the album with this song was an easy move, but I would have liked to have seen it placed it a little further back in album to give the record a little room to breathe before blowing up with the best song right out of the gate. I just feel like this is most energetic song on the album and placing it right at the start makes the listener feel a little disappointed as the excitement and enthusiasm wane with the running time.
The second track, “One Man Therapy”, is just as pop-oriented, but a tad darker. There’s a nod to early Nine Inch Nails in the vocal approach, and the rhythm that the verse focuses around does sound like a more danceable version of NIN’s trademark industrial style, but the synths sound more like Bella Morte. “Fucked Up Jesus” and “Coma Drama”, in contrast, are much more focused around that Marilyn Manson sound on the Mechanical Animals album, though the piano break near the three minute mark of “Coma Drama” gives it a more “epic” feel in the vein of darkwave pioneers Deine Lakaien. “Fucked Up Jesus” has a great verse built around shorted out analog synth effects with foley sounds. The obvious pop-structure doesn’t seem to hinder Ashley’s creativity and the things he does within the boundaries he built around himself are quite impressive.
The CD comes packaged with an accompanying DVD with a video for the song “My Decadent Thursday”. The video looks pretty and directed well, but it’s literally the only thing on the DVD, which seems like a waste to me when they could have just added the video as an enhanced feature on the CD itself. The marketability makes sense, as someone in Ashley’s camp figured out that half naked women still help sell records, but the inclusion of a separate DVD would be much more understandable if they had included more content on the second disc.
Review written by Ian Wise
