Connecticut’s Twitch the Ripper is comprised of duo Jon Dobyns and Lonn Bologna. Bodiless is their debut album, which is deeply invested in the Dark Wave genre; emphasising the synth-heavy pop and Industrial elements.
The album’s opening track quickly sets the tone for the next 45 minutes that this record lasts; within the first 4 bars strong echoes of Pretty Hate Machine era Nine Inch Nails enters the mind. Whilst, the instrumental aspects present may have a cleaner sheen this album firmly displays its roots are from the late 1980s.
However, whilst the instrumentals are solidly enjoyable, they are ruined by the vocals that are superimposed on them. Dobyn’s vocal performance is interminably bad, performed in a breathy and atonal softly sung-spoken style, they do not match the tone of the instrumental elements and feel discordant with the beat of the songs.
More worrying are the lyrics themselves; they reek of adolescent amateurism with their maudlin pseudo-Gothic musings. At times they are laughably bad; especially on ‘Disconnected’ with lines like “the night keeps me tender, the last thing you’ll remember” which have a faint odour of date rape surrounding them.
Each song on the album is roughly the same as the others; the lyrics and instrumental aspects may differ slightly but the atmosphere and Dobyn’s vocal delivery remain the same. Sadly, by the time you are halfway through the album, it already feels stale.
If this album can be deemed to have a highlight in these conditions, it is probably the closing track, ‘A Place for Polaris’ where the vocals are slightly less irksome and it is easier to focus on the engrossing instrumental elements.
Despite being “mixed by Grammy winner Phil Magnotti and mastered by Emily Lazar of The Lodge” this album seems like it was created on a computer using some generic software and a microphone; it is only the excellent production quality that suggests otherwise.
If you were to remove the vocals from this album, it would probably be significantly more enjoyable; what remains belong in a DJ set in a ‘Goth’ club. As it is, there is nothing of significant value that encourages you to listen to the album in full, or even casually sample it. Instead of listening to this album, listen to the likes Nine Inch Nails and She Wants Revenge; they do the same thing. Only a lot better.
