Strapping Young Lad - Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing
Released: 1995

Peter Sedy, SUBCULTURE, US

"...this stuff is fast -- not as in blast beat fast, however, but as in breakneck fast that grips your cranium and pummels it to and fro with reckless abandon..."

"This time [Devin] is out there on his own terms, unrestricted by other people's musical codes and ready to raise musical hell. This he indisputably does on 'Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing', summoning up the most nerve-jangling demons of Industrial Metal this side of Fear Factory."

"...I'm hearing grind, death, gothic, and even classical together in a tightly-wound ball of fury. Add that to some intricately-worked samplings and loops -- fast, furious and fucked-up."

"'Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing might sound like a one-liner from 'Black Adder', but there is nothing silly about this album. The combination of Metal riffage, semi-operatic harmonies and quasi-industrial noise is more ludicrous than Nora Batty in Playboy."

"There should be a warning sticker on this that says, 'use caution when listening. Contents may rip you a new asshole and leave you turned inside out like a discarded sock."

"Ignore the name, it's just a frivolous whim emblazoned on the front of one of the most disturbing albums you'll hear for a very long time. A bit like 'The Exorcist' being released as 'Fluffy Wuffy Cottontail'."

"'Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing' is a brutally intense noisescape, practically exploding with distorted (but tightly controlled) screams, breakneck tempos and a pervading sense of mental illness."

"Strapping Young Lad...seem intent on totally destroying your brain and soul with precise picking, double kicks, industrial sampling, keyboards, drums, drum machine, clean and heavy vocal melodies and distorted bass which weave in and out of each other creating a mood somewhat reminiscent of being dragged under a locomotive at varying speeds through the Rocky Mountains while bouncing your head off every sleeper along the way."

"...the most grotesquely heavy abusive sound I've ever heard. They make Nine Inch Nails sound like Romper Room."