The Greater Wrong of the Right [Digipak] by Skinny Puppy

Pros: probably the most accessible Skinny Puppy album
Cons: probably the most accessible Skinny Puppy album

Their 2004 release The Greater Wrong of the Right is probably Skinny Puppy's most accessible album.  (I haven't heard their 2007 release, Mythmaker, so I could be wrong.)  How you feel about that depends on ...

Pros: Driving percussion, smooth transition, solid production
Cons: Some lack of variation on rhythm tracks in first half of album

Flash back a few years (say, 15 or so, give or take) to a time when industrial music was dark and mysterious and mostly ignored by civil-minded, "normal" people. Not the Marilyn Manson followers with their over-blown sense of "image" and "style" that ...

Pros: Cohesive, varied, and nary a weak link in the bunch
Cons: Some slightly repetitive techno leanings, the baggage that comes with the name Skinny Puppy

So it's corroded, Always polluted, WE ALL WANT SOME OF IT! It's here. I'm rather sure a five-star rating comes as no surprise to those who've seen my unabashed drool-fest over the last month leading up to the release of The Greater ...

Pros: a new breed of puppy
Cons: a new breed of puppy

In my short eighteen years of existence, I’ve heard many a stupid epithet. One highlight in particular occurred in my Humanities class prior to my high school graduation. I was in a sour mood that day. As if putting up with the jackasses who I ...

Pros: It's a recent Skinny Puppy release.
Cons: Repetitive sounds, mainstream appeal, sell-out quality.

As a die-hard Skinny Puppy fan, and follower of the industrial scene my entire music-conscious life, I find this album to be near blasphemous. Can you say, "sell-out?" Sorry. Let's agree, Skinny Puppy is getting on in years, and let's also agree, us aging goths and darksiders and spookies should perhaps "get with the times" but... good lord! this is nearly an ode to Limp Bizkit, with it's rap-rock repetitions and violent shouting. It seems the studio has won, over the dark creative legacy. Gone are the days of "The Killing Game" and other ambient noise-laden favorites... we are left to endure commercial and radio-safe "hits" that sound just the same as any other mainstream band. You can hardly even classify this as industrial anymore... just angry. The creative edge has been rubbed smooth, and we are left with "mainstream." Isn't that what we have always strove to be apart from? I will take my old Cure and Siouxsie and NIN and Attrition albums and go sit in my dark corner, and leave this one on the shelf to rot, thank you. It's electronic power and technical thrust is the only redeeming quality.