I got to know them through a friend of mine who said “you gotta listen to them, they are great”. So I contacted the label to see if I could get hold of a copy. Then I heard that one of the blokes at the label was a friend of my friend... I got kinda scared that I had been tricked by someone who got over-enthusiast because he knew those who were releasing the CD. The parcel arrived, I put the CD my stereo. I was immediately relieved. This stuff is truly great.

Apparently, And then you die has a very long history: the band was formed as early as 1990. Over those 13 years, they have released 5 CD’s, ep’s, 7 or 12 inches. Abuse Park, which seems to be a compilation of various tracks taken from all ATYD prior records, is the first album to be released on Onyxia records, an exciting new label focusing on noise/industrial/electronics/experimental music. Keep an eye on them.  I don’t know whether that aim is still up-to-date (that wouldn’t surprise me, Atyd and their label being what I’d call aesthetic/visual interested people), but ATYD initial ambition was to be an art collective mixing music, film and various other arts. They are now a duet when they record.

Industrial music has a long history. Throbbing Gristle, Einstürzende Neubaten, Foetus and many more have been at the forefront of daring music world-wide and have had a major impact on electronic music. In regards to ATYD, those bands had a huge influence on a scene that sprung in Birmingham through two incredibly talented individuals: JK Broadrick and Mick Harris. Those two legends and their various projects (such as Godflesh, Techno Animal, Tech Level 2, God, Scorn or Lull) come to mind immediately when you listen to Abuse Park.

And don’t expect me to complain: when talking about references, you can’t get much better than Broadrick and Harris. Even more: ATYD manages to always sound fresh and original. It’s all about respecting the forefathers and remaining original. For how do you want to show all due respect to people that perform very unique music if you don’t go further than they do? Neither them nor us do need copycats.

ATYD uses guitars (although it’s not the main instrument and sometimes is buried deep beneath the other sound sources), bass (very heavy, I’d say it’s the most important instrument on Abuse Park), loads of machines and sometimes real drums. The overall sound is very cold. If I’m not mistaken, the lyrics are mostly sung in finnish and the vocalist plays on the way he sings in a very interesting way, which brings a nice change when you think of all those one-dimensional vocalists.  As I said earlier, the band’s roots undeniably lie in dark music. From  Industrial-Metal riffs and rhythms to Prong-esque grooves to dark dub/ambient/trip-hop à la Scorn Evanescence era to folk à la Swans (on Junkie) to Einstürzende Neubauten own brand of Indus (listen to Aavistus orgiaa , it will remind you of Installation N°1 and its lyrics “just one law, disobey!” which fit perfectly to ATYD attitude). I even hear some hiphop and drum'n'bass beats somewhere in here...

This CD is a trip into a post-apocalyptic world, dark, cold and pitiless. A vision of our world in a few years, after THE catastrophe. From our industrial society, only ruins remain. Here and there you see the metallic skeletons of plants and factories. Nature should take over but it won’t, it just can’t, it’s dead too... The sky is grey or maybe amber. Anyway, it’s troubled. Abuse park could be the soundtrack of Caro and Jeunet’s cult movie Delicatessen if you remove the happy ending. A place where you wouldn’t want to live...

Most metal fans won’t get this. Neither will regular fans of  trip-hop. This is too dark and heavy. This is too demanding. And then you die is a band that music needed, visually as much as sonically. Abuse park is limited to 500 copies. Get it now, d’ya hear me?

http://www.onyxia.org