The Great Corrupter is a remix album. A kind of companion album to 2016’s The Great Deceiver where its strengths lie in the diversity it offers over the monochromatic anger driven industrial of the main album. The semi-pop driven hooks of The Great Deceiver are twisted in a fashion that let the compositions shine over their more coherent counterparts. Plus there’s enough Chris Vrenna on here to lure an emaciated Cheshire cat out and rename the album to Mortiis Through the Looking Glass.
Many of the tracks on the double album reinforce the intention of the originals but there are a good few tracks that are so different that they have the power to stop you in your tracks and check the collaborating artist.
The Apoptygma Berzerk reworking of Sins of Mine using the the fresh Exit Popularity Contest sounds to create what could very well be a collaboration from that album. With the brighter and colder synths working to make a pop anthem in seven minutes. Think Sparks where the town is big enough for the two of them.
Surprisingly Merzbows’ contribution is a helluva lot less noisy than you’d expect. The Japanese master of deconstruction ends the twenty-eight piece suite with a roomy rendition of Bleed Like You. Another great reworking that sounds decidedly cyberpunk; If there was ever a film of Neuromancer then this is the soundtrack. Similarly Manes tackling the same track give it a dystopian city like rise.
These are only descriptions of a few recolourations from The Great Corrupter. There are a few remixes that sound a bit too close to the originals. Sliced and served on a bed of bass lines and/or overdrive. These tracks are radio friendly bakes that retain the flavor of the originals but are presented in a way not to alienate the audience. However the real gems on this album are the latter tracks that have an edge to them similar to the works of The Future Sound Of London or Massive Attack and it’s these renders that are worth losings your sense of direction for.
8/10
