Scionic - Gone
Independent, 2001

track listing:
Suiciety // Hypocrypha // Killing Fields // W.W.Y.B. // Parasite // More // Divide // Fire // Cull // Oceans // Hypocrypha (Vaculty mix) // Suiciety (Misinformation mix) // unlisted bonus track

available from:
Scionic website

The debut album by Scionic provides just over an hours worth of solid guitar-driven industrial with bold Christian lyrics. The guitars are a pretty constant element throughout, playing catchy power and speed metal riffs while filtered vocals on top vary from spoken word and mild singing lines to more aggressive, shouted parts. The guitar tones remind me of Jagged Doctrine while the vocals by frontman AJR are a unique combination of Wally Shaw on early Deitiphobia albums and Marc Soloman on the AP2 track "My Sympathies".

The industrial elements are well-done consisting of cool movie voice samples, rapid drum machine work and plenty of pulsating techno programming. Similar to the work of Circle of Dust, the use of electronics feel like a main ingredient in the development of the songs structure rather than an experimental afterthought. And if thats not enough for you, the techno-flavoured remixes of "Hypocrypha" and "Suiciety" at the end of the album should satisfy those cravings.

All of the lyrics are listed in the cover (except for the unlisted bonus track) and are clearly based on Scripture with accompanying references for further reading. Scionic presents the message of the gospel in a hard hitting manner that is hard to ignore. He really has a heart for evangelism. The unlisted bonus track has a great melodic praise & worship chorus inbetween the driving, fast verse segements making it one of my favourite songs on the album. I wouldn't be surprised if this gets picked up by a label and distributed into Christian bookstores at some point.

Another plus of the album is the clean recording, it is easy to grasp the depth of tracks and pick out individual sounds.

While Scionic does sound like a number of bands rolled into one, namely Jagged Doctrine, Wyrick and Deitiphobia, the outcome is a highly enjoyable one. Pick this up if you are into the guitar side of industrial music at all.

--Richard Maaranen