Rude 66 - Sadistic Tendencies
Toby Frith Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 01:58PM 
RUDE 66 - SADISTIC TENDENCIES (Crème Organization)
Alongside Guy Tavares and Ferenc van der Sluijs, Ruud Lekx has been a mainstay of the acid-orientated scene that emerged from the Hague, contributing to some of the earliest Acid Planet and Bunker releases in the mid-nineties. Combining EBM influenes with electro, Lekx has scored some notable records along the way, most significantly with the De Wraak der Wegpiraten EP, although to be truthful, his output as a whole has been sparse.
“Sadistic Tendencies” is a mixture of the dark atmospheric ideas that he’s propagated, combined with the more forceful, and dare I say it, dumb dancefloor aspects of Italodisco. Last year’s singles “As” and “1000 year storm” are included, and upon initial listening, their simplistic melodies stand out, the latter in particular being a cogent marker of the Dutch italo/electro genre. Yet after a while it’s the dark Chicago-themed acid of “Walked in Line” and “Massenmorder” that begin to appeal more, both complemented by Lekx’s trademark vocoder vocals. There are hints of the influence of Anthony Rother, but he eschews Rother’s fetish for production detail and instead concentrates on simplifying matters into more stripped down grooves.
The album’s highlights are the hi-NRG electro of “No oone had a clue” and the Bitstream-esque “Blood is Blood”, which reeks of malelovence whilst maintaing a taut energy that would go a storm on the dancefloor. It’s not all plain sailing though, as things peter out towards the end, tracks like “Angst Bleibt” and the album’s title track don’t hold up to closer inspection, and the atmospheric interlude of “The Human Flesh”, replete with sampled sci-fi/horror speech just seems a bit out of date. Furthermore, the rather noisy, almost industrial aspect of Lekx’s music seems to have been slowly synthesized out of his more recent productions, giving it a slightly glossy, slick aspect, and this I feel is to its overall detriment. The sheer energy of some of his older material was complemented by a haphazard, loose approach to production that gave it a raw edge. That probably seems harsh, as “Sadistic Tendencies” contains at least 5 or 6 strong tracks, and for an album in this day and age, that’s a good success rate.
Toby Frith
Reader Comments (1)
It's his wife on the vocals i think? She does em all live anyways, which is also a brilliant show. It still conveys that really loose, raw feel that you commented on being lacking a bit on this album.