BONDAGE FRUIT V - SKIN

More or less every Bondage Fruit album up to this point saw them evolving their sound by leaps and bounds, but their fifth album may be their greatest departure of all. The fact that it has a title - Skin - is the first clue, but the real shock comes when you listen to it and hear that this band who for the four preceding albums had perfected a fast and furious playing style combining Zeuhl with Crimsonish guitar workouts and threw in some modern influences to round things off - have slowed things waaaay down, and seem to be making some sort of stab at post-rock. Unfortunately, they aren't so adept at creating tension and atmosphere through slow, sparse playing as post-rock veterans such as Godspeed You Black Emperor or Mogwai, and the end result is much less interesting than their prior albums.