On the new record from CRT, everything is fractured and torn. Bent up and blown out. On the most primal level, it’s a splintered mass of contortionist knots tied taut with barbed wire. Menacing jack tracks. Razor-sharp metallic funk. When it thumps, it does so with cold, violent insistence like cops kicking down your door. When it breathes (very rarely does it breathe) the air is soaked in apprehension. And yet, buried beneath the album’s harsh, grating exterior lies a burning heart beating with ecstatic grooves.

CRT - State X-Ray

Like its predecessors CS1 and CS2, State X-Ray finds producer Michael Keenan blurring the lines between industrial, EBM, noise, electropunk, and more. That hybridization of sounds comes through most dramatically on the record’s caustic opener “SkinBeneathSkin.” There are no shortage of wiry bangers within CRT’s catalog, but this may be my favorite of the bunch. Keenan’s vocals are generally textural—just another layer of grainy muscle to toss into his industrial grinder. But here his deapan delivery drips with irony and disaffection as the track’s clattering framework burts all around him. It’s unsettling yet kinetic, a post-apocalyptic club floor slammer for cyberpunks and angry cyborgs.

That’s followed by “Strangeways Cafeteria in Dub,” another propulsive track driven by gurgling bass, angular synths, and smashed-glass beats. Jagged and abrasive, it’s part eerie sci-fi soundtrack and part panic attack rave-up with rusty hooks that stab and sneer. Similar things could be said for “So Normal” and “Dionysian Velvet,” a one-two punch of mutant dance music that sounds an awful lot like snarling punk songs clipped and processed into a robotic state.

Over the course of CRT’s three records, it’s become increasingly clear that Keenan’s time in noise-forward acts like Hawks and NAARC sharpened his instinct for crafting inscrutable melodies that sneak up on you. Throughout State X-Ray, he puts that intuition to good use. Field recordings and VHS tape manipulation provide surprising tension and contextual depth while sequencers scatter and detonate like so much grenade shrapnel. By the time the closer “Survive By Virus” arrives you’re either fully immersed in CRT’s mechanized, dystopian vision or you shut it out long ago; Keenan has never been one to yield much middle ground.

Released in March, State X-Ray suffered the unfortunate circumstance of arriving just as the shutdown was beginning. It’s sad and ironic that a record so suited to the anxiety and paranoia surrounding the pandemic could be lost within its shadow. But that’s the cold world we live in. As a response, intense and unnerving have become CRT’s operating norm. Jittery but hyper-precise, the music always leans towards the dark and thematic. On State X-Ray, that darkness is not the gloom of goth, of macabre death and misery. Instead, it offers something more timely and potent—the jet-black jubilation of everything is fucked so we may as well dance.

More Info
Bandcamp: crtatl.bandcamp.com
Facebook: @crtatl
Instagram: @copyrightregistertrademark