Hot-off-the-press industrial music doesn't cross my path too often. I wish that weren't the case, but I suppose one benefit of that reality is that when it does happen, I tend to check it out—which has just resulted in being quite impressed by the debut full-length from Columbus, OH's 6th Circle. I must commend the lofty press materials for being relatively accurate, too. I'll have to take the label's word on the "satanist/anarchist" descriptor, but referring to The Third Estate as "an electro-industrial/EBM statement of the highest order" while comparing the material to legends such as Front 242, Front Line Assembly, and Skinny Puppy is fair enough, believe it or not.
The 10-song, nearly 40-minute offering is dark, gritty, and aggressive but does lean more toward that lushly atmospheric electro/EBM side of the spectrum than anything overtly metallic. The only other contemporary act I've heard within this niche that also reaches this level of quality would be Statiqbloom, but again, there's not a ton of this stuff hitting my inbox, so I'm not the most well-versed scribbler-of-bullshit-on-the-internet to be confidently discussing such matters. That being said, there's just enough industrial in my collection for me to feel like I know what's good, and this is very good.
The Third Estate is out today through Sentient Ruin Laboratories on LP, cassette, and digitally. In absence of a CD option, I'm still debating which format to nab myself, but I also need to go back and investigate the project's prior two EPs as well...
