The Pain Machinery. Surveillance Culture. CD.

”Surveillance Culture” is the sixth studio album by Swedish electro punk powerhouse The Pain Machinery. It’s also their most daring and confident LP yet, combining retrofuturistic electronics, crisp danceable beats and assertive vocals that are more upfront than ever before. Asked about the impetus for the departure from their earlier heavily distorted industrial sound, the band is adamant that less is more:

”We simply felt it was time to strip away some layers, to try and create maximum impact from a minimum of audio tracks. This is probably the catchiest and most listenable TPM has ever been, but it’s entirely on our own terms. We’ve also returned to some of our older influences, everything from stuff like early Human League and Killing Joke to Acid House and New Beat. In general, we’re really into the whole post-punk aesthetic and we tried to reflect that in the packaging. In terms of production, we wanted to keep the jagged edges and some of the human imperfections – there are already enough people out there doing meticulously polished electronic music. Someone described us as a garage band with synths instead of guitars, which is about as good 
as it gets in our book!”