Psychotica, formed in 1994 by Don Hill's bartender Tommy Salmorin and NYC Club Owner Pat Briggs along with Paul"ENA"Kostabi were a seminal influence in Industrial Goth, releasing 3 albums to mixed reviews and varied success. Lead singer Pat Briggs, with outrageous costumes and antics, paved the way for the mainstream acceptance of androgynous musicians in bands like Orgy and Placebo. Psychotica's fame reached it's pinnacle of popularity in 1996, as a result of being on the bill at Lollapalooza with Soundgarden. From: https://www.concertarchives.org/bands/psychotica
My first thought of this band was, "Aren't those the guys who painted themselves blue and danced, screaming and half-naked, at Lollapalooza?" They were. Something about the sheer insanity of the album first attracted me, but lying underneath the personality excess that gives the band its name is an emotional intensity rarely felt in this genre. I say "felt" because this is music that digs deeply into the listener. While Gary Numan and David Bowie spend most of their time in space, ocassionally delving into loneliness or shallow lust, Pat Briggs, Tommy, Reeka and Ena run the range of emotional experience.
The hard-driving, alienated "Ice Planet Hell" and "Starf***er Love" set the tone that this is a sonic experience far-removed from your daily soundtrack. The complex "Barcelona" allows rhythm and melody to expand, contract, and intertwine, starting from a simple few acoustic chords, until it reaches an epic-feeling climax, not unlike running with the bulls in Pamplona, only to be gored within inches of the finish. In contrast to the uber-glam power of "New Man" (featuring Pat's incredible vocal crescendos), "The Little Prince" develops from a mellow foil into a gripping cry of isolation. The insane "Stop" and the band's cover of Devo's "Freedom of Choice" give an energy boost to the center of the album.
What kept the album from earning a 5th star was the incomplete concept that tried to unify the songs. Intertwined within the full-length tracks were bits and pieces that were trying to make a statement but never quite did. "worship" is a backwards scream, echoed several times over with a bass playing backwards in the background. "the sleep" is the strangest track on the entire album - in between the hard-grinding "Flesh and Bone" and the spiraling "180 degrees," the sleep is a minute and a half piano-and-cello melody, very slow, the type of thing you would play when trying to get an infant to settle down. The album finishes very nicely, however, with "the awakening," a quasi-mystical piece that should be listened to on repeat under the glow of blacklights and highlighters. From: https://www.amazon.com/Psychotica/dp/B000002MBC
