Cassette Review: Light Sensitive "Enemy Smile" (Personal Archives)

[$5 // Edition of 40 // http://personalarchives.bandcamp.com/album/enemy-smile]

While I'm not entirely certain what the artist name Light Sensitive could specifically refer to, as it could be some sort of animal who is nocturnal or a photograph being developed, I do know that I can relate to it because my eyes are very sensitive to bright lights and as such I think it's a name that can be so broad yet so specific at the same time that anyone could find something within it with which to relate.

Side A begins with building beats that find static and begin to loop.   It somehow has this industrial quality to it I can't quite put my finger on, but then it also brings out this dark synth which reminds me of a Darth Vader death march only with more melody.    The second piece on this side is quieter guitar notes being played in sequences.    There should be a better way to describe how these soothing tones chime in and out but they don't remind me of anything else, if only because perhaps they put my mind at such ease.

On the flip side we turn into this synth sort of rhythm that goes full on distortion.    This is going into a harsh noise realm with the loudness and then it shifts into these sort of alarm tones of some sort which go back and forth in the rhythm of a pulse on a machine in a hospital.   (Though the tones themselves still make me think of some factory alarm, telling me to get out, no matter how the rhythm flows)   It's dark like somewhere between a little bit of every song ever created by Nine Inch Nails rolled into one.

A sound of wah-wah synth takes us into the end of the cassette but there is still that mechanical sound going on where everything is building and moving.   It's like watching ants build something or the insides of a machine in some forgotten factory that was replaced by computers.    I would be hesitant to call this an instrumental version of NIN but if you like one you'll like the other.   It's the closest comparison I can come to though, and that doesn't just include my normal tag line of "artists who you've probably heard of before".    There isn't even an artist I could name that you probably don't know of to compare this with and that really tells the story in many ways as well of just how great this is.