The Dividing

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The Dividing album cover
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Total Tracks: 11   Total Length: 45:41

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Jon Wiederhorn

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Jon Wiederhorn is a senior editor at Revolver, a regular freelancer for Guitar World and SPIN and the co-author of the upcoming book "Louder Than Hell: The Unce...more »

04.22.11
Ever wonder what Siouxsie Sioux would sound like on Thorazine?
2003 | Label: Projekt / Iris

The one-woman project of Bangladesh-born artist Shikhee, Android Lust blends goth textures, electronic atmospheres and industrial beats into songs as propulsive as they are unsettling. A prettier hate machine than Nine Inch Nails 'debut, Android Lust's third album The Dividing nonetheless taps into the same pool of anxiety, self-loathing and raw sexuality. Throughout, Shikhee switches off between seductive whispers and moaning melodies, sounding something like Siouxsie Sioux on Thorazine. Musical reference points include NIN, Bauhaus, Skinny Puppy and Dead Can Dance, but the music is crafted with such vision and skill it never feels derivative.

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Peels Off My Skin...and Loving It!

snappinshutters

If you ever get the privilege to see Android Lust in concert, DO IT! Shikee is an amazing artist--not just a singer as she writes the music and the lyrics. Her voice is intoxicating and haunting while the beats pulsate and rock your very core, telling of tales of tainted love and the darkness of sex and lies. A must-have for anyone who enjoys gothic/electronic-industrial music.

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Kreepy

festerbones

Sufficiently Kreepy Dragonfly. Sexy Kreepy Milky Mechakanikal Octapussy girl! Mmmmm! Resistance is futile...must asssimilate!!

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Strong stuff

Shieldfire

This is not your average Goth/Industrial music. Shikhee produces extremely emotional, intense and personal music. Her singluarly personal style produces a wide range of emotions and may at times be difficult to enjoy, while the subjects are (or felt as) very personal and emotionally loaded. This release is the entry point into the world of Shikhee rather than Devour, Rise and take Flight. It's not easy listening but well worth it.

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Goth

By Jon Wiederhorn, eMusic Contributor

By the late '70s, England had largely given up dreaming; many of its disaffected youth resigned themselves to a life of dissatisfaction, depression and self-medication. Rather than scream about Tories, growing unemployment and limited opportunity, artists brooded through percussive, bass-heavy songs about death and darkness. Goth was born. Northampton, England, quartet Bauhaus's 1979 debut "Bela Lugosi's Dead" is widely regarded as quintessential goth. Inspired by punk's confrontational spirit but driven more by self-hatred than rage, the… more »

They Say All Music Guide

Android Lust is just one person, Shikhee by name, and in the tradition of such auteurs as Trent Reznor, she may have a guest performer here or there, but this is all her vision and band, and she does a great job at it as well. The Reznor connection isn’t too far off when it comes to Android Lust’s music — Shikhee is clearly a fan of his industrial/goth/metal fusions and experiments and happily applies the same sense of recombination to her own work. Notably, though, unlike all the wannabes that bubbled up after The Downward Spiral hit it big, Shikhee’s own combinations of wounded emotion and rampaging anger taps into the same sense of romantic apocalypse instead of just flailing for its own sake. Her sense of sometimes hot and sometimes cold, explicitly female anger and lust calls to mind everyone from Marianne Faithfull to Toni Halliday, while the combination of everything from Middle Eastern melodies to nervous Depeche Mode-styled keyboards demonstrates a similar sense of wide-ranging inspiration. The unsettled rush of “Panic Wrought,” the combination of stabbing bass and woozy, bansheelike synth wails on “Stained,” and “Another Void” and its mix of chopped-up guitar melodies and keening strings over a roiling beat are all stellar examples of how smart and sensitive her skills are. Meanwhile, the stentorian but chilled pace of “Follow” is as good a portrait of sheer obsession and entrapment into a relationship as any, in the perceived genre or out of it. When Shikhee hits a full-on dancefloor stride with songs like “The Want” and “Unbeliever,” it’s as good a sign as any that an electronic body music revival and reinterpretation is back on the cards, as well as being in very good hands. – Ned Raggett

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