It was a desperate situation. I had fallen asleep at 4:30am and it looked as if I might be slipping into permanent hibernation. 10:00, 11:00, 12:00 passed... visions of sugarplums dancing in my head... 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, and deep, deep within my subconscious I began to realize that with every hour that I slept, I would fall further and further into an irreversible narcoleptic bliss. I struggled for a way to wake up. I could feel my hand wandering around my bed in the real world, finally touching against something hard and plastic -- my salvation, my remote.

I felt for the number one and far, far in the distance I could hear the changer loading. I knew that this was the only way -- to plug Eat Static's Science Of The Gods in at maximum volume. My finger wandered down to the "volume +" button and held it down. I could hear the speakers hissing from behind Christopher Walken in my dream. Then, my stereo erupted.

Opening with a series of evil bloops and distorted voices, then merging into the goopy bass that is characteristic for the entire CD, Science Of The Gods bitch-slapped me awake (like the bitch that I am). This is trad-skool techno, kids; primarily consisting of thick beats with aggressive drum overlays and complex tempo changes often building to overload crescendos, then dropping off to mutate into whole new throbs. Heavy. Hardly any voice and very little of the more organic elements that we've been seeing in most techno recently, like bongos and tribal chants. Few samples. This is music that proudly comes from a machine. It's not simple, nor is it necessarily easy, filled with saucy off-tempo breaks. Violent mechanical chaos stuffed into order by Merv and Joie. Science is significantly harder and more focused than Eat Static's earlier stuff, and word is they're doing the music for the game "Conquest Earth." Let's keep an eye on 'em.

-James P. Wisdom