Search - Chemlab :: Burnout At The Hydrogen Bar

Give into your dark sinister side!

Distant Voyageur | Io | 11/15/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"An unfortunately obscure and almost forgotten gem in the history of industrial rock, this debut album from the now defunct industrial group Chemlab is a sonic fired up masterpiece. The album cover art should be enough to tell you the explosive nature of this CD. For the love of God, throw out all the nu-metal crap of Limp Bizkit, Sum 41, and Adema and try this. Listen to the industrial, burning angst of Suicide Jag, the stabbing sonics of Neurozone, the extremely threatening firestorm of Derailer, and the violently disturbing screams of Summer of Hate and see for yourself how superior all of Burn Out The Hydrogen Bar is compared to the muddy guitar riffs of the piece of trash album Significant Other by Limp Bizkit. The scratching record sounds in the Suture inteludes are so funny to listen to and make great transition between the songs. This whole album is a firestorm of loud, and extremely loud industrial rock that ranks up there with Nine Inch Nails and Nitzer Ebb and is a classic in Industrial Rock. Buy it! Just don't crack the windows or blow out the speakers!"

A Matchhead Burning out on the Frozen Ground

TastyBabySyndrome | "Daddy Dagon's Daycare" - Proud Sponsor of the Lit | 02/17/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Everytime I encounter the word "classic," someone is always trying to recount a mountain-moving work that makes the clock stand for them. And I listen to the chatter, the sonatas and the movements and the nasty southern rock, and I smile and nod. But I never can relate to them because they aren't my classics, and I leave that table disappointed. I suppose its the age one is born into and the flame one seeks that determines how one views the word, be it rebellion or the rant of a piano, and I wasn't born into the hippie genre or to some outing by Mozart or Bach. To me, the "classics" are the albums that established a new way of doing things, taking both the "preamble that sound is" and the "sound itself" and resculpting it into something different. Feedback looping, distortion, building an electro-mousetrap; these are the poisons of my youth. KMFDM and Sister Machine Gun, Ministry and a sordid array of Wax Trax artists; those were the banner symbolizing - something. As KMFDM would later state (under the moniker MDFMK): The revolution will be synthesized!"

And, with albums like Burn Out at a Hydrogen Bar, it was.



While Chemlab isn't readily remembered in many an adoring fever-dream of what "the good old days were," Burn Out was actually pretty momentous at the time and turned me on to all kinds of sound. A lot of the work was seamless, the sounds were orchestrated and yet filled with random elements of noise, and it still had this rough edge to it. I've always like Chemlab because they've stayed pretty true to that system, using beats were would later tout as "industrial" to push vocals that were like some kind of punk within its genre.

It was good stuff then and has aged pretty well.



As far as tracks that I'd pick out from the album at a glance, I'd have to go with "Chemical Halo," "Summer of Hate," "Elephant Man," and perhaps a little "Coedine, Glue and You" loving. Chemical Halo was the first Chemlab song I heard and is probably still the best out of the bunch, with the meaning still burning bright: "with the sky pouring down every creature will drown this time there will be no Noah's Arc." O yeah. I also like the "kneel and kiss the hand you can not bite" message in Summer of Hate, and the sexual overture ringing out of Codeine, Glue and You."

All that hate and all those drugs never die.









"

Awsome

shawn wendell | edmonton alberta canada | 05/28/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"i still remeber buyin this tape as it was back in the day, i have been surching for this cd for way too long. i love the sound of it, i really have nothing to say other then buy it"