It may well be Power’s finest solo record, a continuation of the last decade-and-a-half of pushing himself into new sonic realms. It’s an astonishing work; actively abrasive and incandescent with fury with a core of unaffected raw feeling.

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musicOMH

It is thrilling, a whirlwind of textures wrapped up in a relatively short run-time, with a sonic consistency that wasn’t always present in 2017’s World Eater.

It is all bark, all bite and Power’s greatest and most consistent release under the Blanck Mass alias, bearing a message that is as crucial as it is necessary.

Put simply, Animated Violence Mild is an excellent album which is imbued with righteous vitriol. This isn’t just the best Blanck Mass album to date, it’s also the best record that Power has been involved in, which really is saying something.

Animated Violence Mild is a powerful collection of music made in response to a phenomenon that is too pervasive to ignore in the world today, and one well worth the listen.

The past eight years have seen Blanck Mass creep forwards to slowly become one of the UK’s most exciting experimental producers. ‘Animated Violence Mild’ is the pay-off, a fantastic, delirious soundtrack to our demise.

Animated Violence Mild sounds and feels like a reaction, reflection and continuation of the teeth-baring protest of its predecessor.

Just like the grief it communicates, this album can’t be reduced to something linear, instead surprising you at every turn: one moment terrifying, the next, transcendent.

When the album ends, it leaves an odd feeling of relief that the unrelenting pummelling is over ... but also total enchantment, a need to listen again, to check that what you heard and felt was real, that the album wasn’t a fluke.

Power is just as skilled at finding the beauty in destruction, and that side of his music takes the lead on Animated Violence Mild.

Not surprisingly, many of the highlights of his fourth solo album – a treatise on capitalism and loss – nod to Power’s better-known band.

11mo

Blanck Mass' Animated Violence Mild drops unrelenting electro-industrial melodies, practicing excess to explore personal grief and the global devastation of consumerism.

Mostly .. it's all just too much. For all the theatrics, there's been a cunning level of restraint and complexity to the most recent Blanck Mass records, something that Animated Violence Mild almost completely lacks.

Power has always been a fearless musician and yet again he pulls no punches with a bile-imbued electronic tour de force that destroys everything in its path.

11mo

11mo

On Animated Violence Mild, in line with the album’s theme of anti-consumerist self-loathing, everything is cranked up to an antagonistic, perhaps even intentionally over-saturated, level.

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Pipe

Blanck Mass have the potential to make classic, genre breaking material that could compete with the likes of SOPHIE, Death Grips, JPEGMAFIA or even lesser acts like HEALTH or Street Sects, but what Ben Power mostly spends his time doing is making pretty decent electronic music.

How is that a complaint? Let me explain.

First off, what is Blanck Mass? And who the fuck is Ben Power? If i'm going to be honest, I wish I had those answers, but I don't. I believe (from the very quick google search ... read more

musicmagpie55

Post-industrial? More like post-uncrustables! (am I doing memes right?)

Animated Violence Mild is another humorously saccharine industrial/dance/electronic album by noise daddy Benjamin John Power. As someone who stays in the shallow end of the post-industrial pool, Blanck Mass appeals to my more pop-centric tastes. Power fills his music with machine-gun-like beats and towering synths but also with discernible melodies and groovy rhythms. As loud as many of these songs get, they kind of feel ... read more

Plats

"Animated Violence Mild" is a very punchy, cohesive industrial/dance record that makes me dance and you dance do you like dance dawg? It doesn't have too much variety, but anyone looking for some industrial salad to beat beat beet beets and dance dance make em dance to then Blanck Mass has just the recipe. Ya know?

Fav Tracks: Death Drop, Wings of Hate, Love Is a Parasite, House Vs. House, Hush Money

Least Fav Track: Creature/West Fuqua

Score:
8.5
Exceptional

Jimpy O'Houlihan, The New Hope

GREAT

I actually wasn't sure what to expect with this one. I really enjoyed 2017's World Eater, a visceral, powerfully violent album that I still love to this day. However, unlike pretty much every other upcoming album I'm excited for, I had no idea whether or not Animated Violence Mild would live up to or surpass World Eater's greatness. Usually I can predict whether or not a new album will be better than an artist's last, but here, I went in with no expectations.

I can safely say that ... read more

先生

working title: If Crystal Castles made Pretty Hate Machine.
rating range: 66-76
favorite track: Creature/West Fuqua
kinda boring // most consistent body of sound from Ben's Blanck Mass // basks in the shadows of world-eater's impact // 8-bit variation as if a video game spin-off of world eater's sound//

1y*

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