Album Review: The Singles Collect and The B-Sides Collect by Skinny Puppy

Where Nine Inch Nails are black, Skinny Puppy were brown. They had an industrial sound but Canadian accents, guilt but no sex appeal, jumpy synth and Depeche Mode drums but little popular success. Drugs and varied hardships put them in deep decline starting in '93, just as they were signing to major-label American Recordings. Now they've returned to their roots with Nettwerk Productions' double-release of their greatest hits and the corresponding B-sides, although it's mainly an excuse to eliminate the band's singles from the catalog. The two albums, with earlier tracks containing more guitar while later tracks sound more like KMFDM on drugs, are more than anything a reminder that of all contemporary musical genres industrial is by far the most religious--the industrial sound tries to sound like Satan because it believes the machine is evil. Skinny Puppy were romantics finding refuge in the grotesque; grinding on about God and man so earnestly that one fears people might take them seriously. All this in mind, The Singles Collect offers a few good dance tunes, and both albums are good for a deadly serious power-walking session, full of strong beats and an overweening sense of destiny. Singles: C+ B-Sides: C