Meat, meat, and more meat. Well, that's a good portion of this disc, anyway-- and not just in the traditional sense of the word. True, there are a couple of pictures of buckets from the local rendering factory, along with snapshots of some soon- to- be- victim little piggies, but the tracks on this disc also have a hearty, meaty feel to them. Rich in distorted guitar and fast- paced grindbeat (yet danceable) drum rhythms, Perversion is a heaping helpful of sound fit to whet any carnivore's appetite.

With the slowly waning popularity of "grunge" music, there have been a few bands that have stepped up to fill the gaps. Somewhere between Sonic Youth and Nine Inch Nails, the angst- ridden, pseudo- industrial music of Gravity Kills would be one such example. Fitting well into the "new vision" of alternative rock stations, the band brings with them the anger of their generation as well as the flair of performance, and all the other clichés, too.

Although they've come a long way in the quality of recording since their DIY debut album, Gravity Kills still haven't quite broken new ground. They're the ultimate angry rip- off band, the band that's easy to compare to other bands because they seem to go out of their way to sound like somebody else. This isn't to say that they can't turn out a good track-- the songs "If" and "Alive" will get stuck in your head for weeks, but these are songs that could have been on any other industrial- grunge album and sounded exactly the same-- but there's nothing strictly distinct about a Gravity Kills song.

Although it's better produced than their earlier works, Perversion seems to have lost any edge that the band may have had while doing all their own work. Perhaps this is what happens when you get signed to TVT, the label that seems to be swallowing up anything remotely edgy, as long as the band scores enough points on the body- piercing scale. Or perhaps it's because radio has lost its dignity and Gravity Kills figured out that they were close enough to a sound that could make them lots of money, so why not exploit it? Whatever the reason, the disc winds up listenable and tolerable, and is probably even great for the road trip you've got planned for next month. But after trimming off the fat, this meat brings you that much closer to vegetarianism.

-Skaht Hansen