If you have never heard of Tim Sköld, surely you have heard his work. From touring with ohGr to remix and production work for Front Line Assembly and 16Volt, to his stints in KMFDM, MDFMK and Marilyn Manson, to scoring the Resident Evil soundtracks, nearly every fan of industrial music has been exposed to his work in some way.

After 15 years since his self-titled debut, producer/songwriter/guitarist/bassist Tim Sköld returns with Anomie. Though his debut is still held in high regard, his sophomore release feels unfocused. Anomie is less of a cohesive album than a collection of songs he’s written since his first release. Sonically, the album is inconsistent with differing musical styles with no central theme in the writing.

It feels as if you can listen to each song and guess which era of collaboration it was written in. “Suck” the album’s first single is very reminiscent of KMFDM (during his tenure) as well as “Blackout” and the extremely heavy “Angel of Noise.” “And Then We Die” and “The Hunger” sounds like it could have been off of Marilyn Manson’s Eat Me Drink Me. “Tonight” is a much more upbeat song and it might actually be one of his best things he has written, to date. While “Polka Dot Dress” and “Deserve,” only available on the Deluxe Edition, felt like it could have been a b-side from the 2009 Skold Vs. KMFDM release.

This album starts off hard and heavy but unfortunately, the momentum slows down by the latter half. There were songs on here that should have definitely been left out. If “I Will Not Forget,” “A Dark Star,” and “Bullets Ricochet” which were released on iTunes with the “Suck” single EP as well as the bonus tracks from the Deluxe Edition would have been mixed in, it might have helped ‘Anomie’ for the sake of consistency.

Overall, Anomie is a decent release but lacks coherence. If you treat this as a collection of songs he has written over the years and less of an album, then you will have a much more enjoyable time listening to this. Is it better than his previous solo work? No. But the good songs here outweigh the weaker ones. Fans of any type aggressive electronic music will definitely enjoy this.

-Henry Chung-

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When Henry‘s not busy working for the corporate machine, updating this page and speaking in third person, he’s busy shooting and editing pictures from concerts, designing logos for bands, setting up interviews and trying to develop a podcast