Polarity

If you pine for the glory days of industrial music when bands like Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb ruled the late-night MTV airwaves, then this is the band for you. Haujobb's sound is less assaultive than Nitzer Ebb's and just a bit more melodic than Front 242's, but the basic elements of vintage industrial dance music are all there: the Teutonic band name, the Teutonic accents, the digitally astringent Teutonic synthesizer beats, the cyber-dystopian design sense (here's a sample song title: "Sect2S-W"; here 's a sample song description: "RT=00:5:12:52 BPM=134"). Despite their best efforts, this duo manages to sound pretty human, though; there are actual melodies peaking through the jackboot rhythms, and those synthesizers, sterile as they may be, are often surprisingly pretty. This is an impressive return to form for a band that really needs to get into the studio more often.