Post Industrial Boys: Trauma

Post Industrial Boys is actually the work of one guy, George Dzodzuashvili, who tends to go by the quite-shortened name of “Gogi”. What this Gogi fellow was trying to accomplish with Trauma, the second album from his Post Industrial Boys project, isn’t entirely clear — the most obvious thing about the album is just how emotionless it all is, from its mellow-but-skittery electronics to the all-but-monotone vocals that insist on marring every single track. The style is perfect for creepy little ditties like the noir-esque “Encounter” and the quick, dark undercurrents of “Paradise”, but a couple of tracks are bound to stick when you throw 20 against the wall. This is the music of a brave new world, where emotion is eliminated and only structure remains. Most egregious is an utterly banal take on Lou Reed’s seminal “Walk on the Wild Side” (here mis-named “Take a Walk on the Wild Side”) that saps the song of its sleaze, its attitude, its entire raison d’être, leaving only the words, the doodoots, and a silly little synth line to pick up the slack. Needless to say, it utterly fails. As does Trauma, as anything other than the soundtrack to a sterile office building where hope is lost and only the vague stench of a once noble concept like progress remains.