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All Music Guide:
Formed in Texas sometime around 1990, Skrew represented the vision of guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Adam Grossman, and despite being referred to as a band, the group was more of a solo expression of Grossman's affinity for what would become known as industrial metal. The genre was still being forged during the early '90s and Grossman deserves credit for shaping the direction and identity of a music form that made similar artists like Nine Inch Nails and White Zombie huge stars. While timely and stylistically comparable to the genre's household names, Skrew lacked the charisma and most importantly the songs to compete, and ultimately moved away from the electronic musical textures in the late '90s, but without great material, the affects were predictably mediocre. The group's 1992 debut on Metal Blade, Burning In Water, Drowning in Flame, sold surprisingly well and it did seem for awhile that the band might be on their way to the gold and platinum status Nine Inch Nails was enjoying. The follow-up Dusted, released in 1994, is perhaps the outfit's finest offering and received plenty of critical acclaim just as Skrew's previous record had, but sales and interest in the group must not have been growing fast enough for Grossman and the musician decided to change his musical direction. The result was 1996's Shadow of a Doubt. More traditional and guitar-driven than Skrew's early industrial metal, Shadow of a Doubt signaled a bit of a decline and further highlighted Skrew's capable, but unremarkable songwriting. Grossman's talent it seems is in the production of blistering combinations of metal riffs and inventive programming, not straight-up dirge-metal performance. The band's final offering in 1997, Angel Seed XXIII, was even more of a disappointment. Fans only familiar with Skrew's debut might not even recognize this bland attempt at something like new metal. Despite the disappointing abandonment of their signature sound, Skrew deserves credit and respect for having the brains to create something forward-thinking and interesting during a brief period when that approach to making rock music was actually being encouraged and rewarded.
Wikipedia:
Skrew is an influential industrial metal band. Formed in 1990 and disbanded in 1998, the group announced its return in 2009.
Biography
Skrew was formed in 1990 in Austin, Texas, by Adam Grossman (guitars/vocals/programming) and Danny Lohner (guitars/background vocals/programming). The band rose from the ashes of crossover thrash band Angkor Wat, of which Grossman and Lohner were members. Skrew recruited local Austin area musicians, as well as Al Jourgensen of Ministry, to record and produce its 1991 debut album Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame. The album fared well commercially (out-selling every debut on the Metal Blade catalog) and received high praise from critics. It was during this period that Lohner left the band initially auditioning for the Red Hot Chili Peppers before being hired by Nine Inch Nails.
Skrew proceeded to work on its second release, Dusted, which was released in 1994. This album saw the addition of keyboardist Jim Vollentine, who would remain with the band for the remainder of its career. Like its predecessor, Dusted was highly praised by critics and fans, and is still considered a classic in field of industrial metal by many fans of the genre. Commercially, however, it was less successful than Burning.
The band's music then underwent significant change, probably due to a head on automobile collision that Grossman experienced in 1995, the result of which was the 1996 album Shadow of Doubt. The album largely moved away from the band's previous sound, featuring more of a slow, extreme thrash metal sound somewhat similar to other 1990s metal bands such as Machine Head. The band went through several member changes in the next year, but by 1997, Grossman had a stable line-up and released the band's final album, Angel Seed XXIII, which featured a style somewhat reminiscent of the then-emerging nu metal genre. The album received even less attention than its predecessor due to a lack of support from their label. Skrew announced its break-up in 1998.
In late 2009 Grossman began putting the pieces of SKREW back together again. SKREW are set for their live Debut on February 12, 2011 in Austin, Texas with a follow-up appearance in March 2011 at the SXSW music festival. The new material is much more politically oriented in terms of lyrics and musically might be more comparable to the Scandinavian extreme metal scene all the while maintaining the roots of what always set SKREW apart from the field, a twisted, sickly bed of electronic discomfort.
