Cesium:137

"The Fall" (Single, 2001)

Tonedeaf

What started as a high school music project four years ago has evolved into an extra-curricular obsession for this industrial three piece from Philadelphia. The Fall is the band's first single and has managed to attract the remix attention of Assemblage 23 among others. Unpretentious, focused, EBM industrial is what Cesium:137 do, and they do it with some polish. A total disc time of over 26 minutes is based around five versions of The Fall, with Canadian Tom Shear's Assemblage 23 project remixing Language Without Lies.

The opening seconds of The Fall (edit) give you the impression John Foxx is about to walk into the room but the pounding beats that follow mark Cesium:137 as the perfect support band to the UK's Inertia. The band's own remix (gasr - j4j mix) pumps up the rhythm, bringing it closer to the likes of VNV Nation et al. Out of Line's Morpheus provides the dancefloor focused (matrix mix), The Morgen Particle deliver clever percussion work on the (obfuscated mix), and Dubok the (ricky roma mix). But it is Assemblage 23's atmospheric work on Language Without Lies that stands out as the finest piece here. 6/10

Rob Dyer