Dismantled

Maybe DISMANTLED's new album "The War Inside Me" is actually the missing link between the dark and desperate masterpiece "Post-Nuclear" and the club compatible sarcastic follow-up "Standard Issue". It is a certain observation that his new album fits right between those records, stylistically, equipped with two additional attributes. One is aggression, the other is hate. "The War Inside Me" is certainly Gary Zon's most aggressive work to date, with tracks like "Insecthead" and "Kill or Be Killed" proving that point.

The Californian trio led by Gary Zon and backed by Jon Siren and female keyboardist T-ZA take no prisoners on this fifth album, neither musically nor lyrically, and the album certainly earns its 'Parental Advisory' sticker. The album is equipped with a few really neat club slammers, namely "Kill or Be Killed", the minimalistic "Dead On Impact" and the melodic "Excess", and although Zon has already proven on prior occasions that he can be master of complex arrangements, "The War Inside Me" comes packed with a raw and minimalistic aggressiveness, consisting of fat and simple baselines and heavy military drums, complemented by Zon's variable vocalist skills. Other moments include calm glimpses, like the ballad-like title track, or the unusually melodic "Disease".

Despite the many simpler arrangements which mostly construct "The War Inside Me", this album sounds unique, honest and energetic all at the same time, and at its core is this strong but unusual message: "The journey of the album is a dysfunctional one and breaks down every relationship I had with someone into an awful, bloody mess that I pick up off the floor and show to the world in all its maggot-infested glory. I keep hating them, loving  them, sawing them in half, putting them back together, blowing it all up to high hell, running through forests, crawling across freeways, driving across the scorched land to find a way out of this mess but the only way I have out is by giving HER the blade to stick into my back and giving HIM a tongue to manipulate with. At the end, when all the fires have burned out and I am dead with her in the forest where it all began, I wake up and realize it's all have been an awful nightmare. But then when I look out the window or turn on the news, I see myself on the TV screen and realize it's all as real as ever".