Disco de Skinny Puppy: “Too Dark Park”

This was the first SP album I ever heard. I was still in high school in 97 and my coworker and I had similar musical taste. I was listening to Coal Chamber's first album (I know, not quite SP, right?) in the shop radio and she said, "I should bring in some Skinny Puppy. I'll bet you love em." So she grabbed this tape and gave it to me to borrow. If any of you remember the original pressing of the cassette tape, I think it was a white cover with just a pink SP logo on the front... needless to say I didn't expect too much after seeing that. So that night I listened to it and I was so very confused. I could hear some incredibly awsome guitar riffs and beats in the background, but for some reason this band decided to layer in some crazy chaotic noises all over it so you never got a steady beat- like with typical bands.

I listened to the tape a couple of times and after a few listens I still didn't "get it". The only thing I could remember after the album was over was Ohgr muttering, "Kiss the master's feet." It still haunts me to this day. So I gave her back the tape a few days later, I didn't even copy it because I didn't think I'd really listen to it again. Well, fast forward a couple of months and you'll see me in a mom and pop record store. They dealt mainly in imports but had a fairly wide selection of out of prints and some obscure no-name bands. Well, curiosity killed my cat and I decided to see what else Skinny Puppy had done. So I saw a few cds, but none with the white cover and pink symbol on the front. So, I asked the guy that worked there which SP album was the best and he pointed me to "Too Dark Park" with it's strangely child like cover art. I figured, "What the hell, If this is the best..."

Imagine my surprise when I put this in my car stereo and cranked the bass up. I was stunned. THIS is their best album!? So I actually kept my car parked in that spot and didn't move until I was done with the first song, "Convulsion" which ends up being like my 4th favorite SP song. I don't know how or why, but something clicked. I finally got it. Maybe it was my 10" woofer or just how music sounds different in the car, or maybe it was because the tape was a lesser quality than the cd I had just purchased. I was speachless. I quickly scanned each song and listened to a minute or so of every song. When I was back to track #1, I turned my car off and walked back into that store with my checkbook. I bought every other SP album they had. You should have seen the look in that store clerks eyes.

Since then I have been a die hard SP fan and they remain my favorite band. To this day, no other album by any artist has ever had such an emotional impact on my musical taste. I love every SP album for different reasons, but this is the only one I consider to be perfect. Maybe it's my emotional attachment to it, but to me it is flawless.

This is an extremely savage, angry, but clever record. The layering in each song is nothing short of brilliant. If you dissect any one song apart, you could find enough music to create 2 or even 3 songs by any "normal" band. The thing I love about SP is that there is always a slight hint of the 80s in their music. Deep down, the underlying core of the music is 80s disco/rock with a sinister edge. Maybe more so in the older music than the "Too Dark Park" era. That might be a bad explaination of it, but that's what I think. Everyone should listen to this album, even if you hate it, it so deserves a listen. Turely one that will never be forgotten like so many mass produced shiesty bands today.

So now I say unto thee, "Kiss the master's feet!"

I agree with the other reviewers, that this album is not for casual listeners of industrial or goth music. Skinny Puppy were the most innovative and talented industrial musicians in my opinion. Industrial music is supposed to be clashing, abrasive, cold, chaotic, etc. Certainly not warm and fuzzy music. But one of the other reviews states that there are no catchy arrangements on this album. I disagree.

Two of the songs, "Shore Lined Poison" and "Morpheus Laughing", I would definitely say have a catchy beat. Both of these songs feature industrial dance beats and a bit more melody that you can follow along with and eventually learn the song structure. These songs also feature sirens, blaring synths, samples, and random noises of things being destroyed, like the one that sounds like an audio cassette tape being rewound and the tape player starts eating the tape.

I think that if you are a primarily a rhythmic-type music listener like me (one who always pays attention to the beats, drum, bass sounds etc., and favors songs with interesting rhythm sections), you may enjoy Skinny Puppy songs more than others. The vocals take some getting used to, and maybe you'd never get used to some of the more abrasive songs, but people who love noisy industrial rhythms can recognize that these songs are "catchy." That's my two cents.

I first heard this album in the early 1990s, just as I was getting into industrial music. The first words that came to mind were dischordant, grating, and violent. I liked it for those reasons (have always liked dark music), but the more I listened to it, the more I noticed something else about it. Buried in the layers of samples, synths, and distorted vocals was a clear harmony. And it wasn't simplistic, sequenced stuff like you might expect from a band relying heavily on machines; it was a fairly complicated performance, with flowing basslines and melodic waveforms. I don't know if Skinny Puppy was trying for that, or if it was just a result of mixing together so many electronic sounds, but it worked. Now when I think of Too Dark Park, I think of words like mature, complicated, and progressive. This was definitely a step in a new direction for electronic music, and Puppy carried it even further with their next album Last Rights, which was even harder to figure out at first. It would have been interesting to see where cEvin Key and Dwayne Goettel would've taken this genre, but with Dwayne's death in 1995, we will never know. All we are left with is the amazing body of work that Skinny Puppy produced, far ahead of its time, which will no doubt go down in history as one of the most impressive and influential collections of the 20th century. Although Too Dark Park doesn't quite illustrate Puppy's overall career, which is perhaps better summed up by albums like Vivisect IV and Cleanse, Fold, and Manipulate, I think it shows the direction they were headed. Anyone with even a slight interest in electronica, techno -- or even Mozart or Coltrane for that matter -- should give this record a listening. Just remember to hear the music within the noise. It's there.

Coming after the release of their album Rabies, which was was co-produced by Al Jourgensen, Too Dark Park represents a return to the more starkly evanescent feel of their earlier work such as Mind the Perpetural Intercourse and VivViSect VI. Released at a time when other industrial acts like Ministry, Frontline Assembly and KMFDM were moving towards a more industrialmetal feel, Skinny Puppy showed in this album that the more complex synth-based arrangements and distorted vocals still had much to offer. Additionally, in Too Dark Park, Ogre continued to use industrial music as a vehicle for the expression of social and political issiues, particularly the continuing destruction of the environment and our treatment of other forms of life. Although such subject matter has been a ubiquitous part of SP's music since the beginning, Too Dark Park seems to be their most overt socially conscious release, as tracks such as Nature's Revenge, Shoreline Poison, Grave Wisdom and Morpheus Laughing Attest.

In other tracks such as Spasmolytic and T.F.W.O. the intensity of Rabies is still evident and works well to beautifully compliment the more brooding soundscapes created in Rash Reflection and Nature's Revenge .

Too Dark Park is a an album that has it all, whether ones loves hard driving ebm or the nightmare world of meandering terror beats. Like most of SP's releases this album is as fresh now as it was the day it was released, and that is saying alot considering just how much industiral music has evolved and become so driven by computer sampling and technology. Anyone who has been lucky enough to see SP live knows what I am talking about, as they are one industrial band that were musicians first and foremost, rather than just a bunch of guys pressing buttons on an iMac. Althouh there are some great acts out there now, few bands will ever equal the intensity and raw emotion that Skinny Puppy could evoke in an audience or the eerie ambience created when listening to on of their albums at 2:30 in the morning. For those not familiar with Skinny Puppy this would be a great album to start with, as it has elements of all their previous work, and shouldn't be neglected.

Brap On!

Too Dark Park is everything Skinny Puppy could do. As other have stated, this is industrial music at its greatest. There is really no way to describe this album. I have listened to this album at least once a week for almost 15 years. I crave it. It is not commercial and it may not be music to some people. But it is the most appriciated collection of organized noise every created. Skinny Puppy made every other band labeled as 'industrial' look like idiots playing chess. No one has come close to making anything like this in 15 years so I think it is your only chance to hear something special.