CRUSHER Magazine: punk/metal/hardcore/industrial: Review: Celdweller

Much to my surprise, this guy has figured out a way to take little bits of goth, metal, industrial, and even some trance and turn it into something intriguing, if not downright awesome. Okay, so imagine a big blender…you throw in a bit of Machines of Loving Grace, Nine Inch Nails, Tool, Linkin Park, Chevelle, Korn, Ministry, and just a touch of Slayer…then hit the frappe button until it all liquefies and becomes a whipped up frenzy of noise and melody and aggression—all new and delicious. That’s about as close as I can come to describing it. There’s vicious heaviness in songs like “Own Little World” and “One Good Reason”, absolutely metallic and alienating, and two of the best songs on the disc. Then there’s a bit of electronic dance in the opening track “Switchback” and on “The Last Firstborn” (heavy metal guitars with heavy trance dance grooves…), which I have to be in the mood for, but that is not the only style that Klayton puts out on this disc. Also a nice addition is the track “I Believe You”, which has a special appearance by Jarrod Montague of Taproot. It sounds like something that should be in heavy rotation somewhere, but probably won’t be if this guy doesn’t get picked up by a major label.

You may not have heard of Klayton or Celldweller, but that will all soon change as two of his songs are slated to be on the Matrix video game.

	CELLDWELLER CELLDWELLER ESION MEDIA/POSITION MUSIC	LINKS: celldweller.com PositionMusic.com
	Usually when a cd says in the liner notes that it was all written, produced, arranged, etc., by one person, it becomes a divine disaster fueled by egotism (excepting very talented people like Remy Shand). So, when I opened the packaging to see that Celldweller is, for all intents and purposes, just this guy named Klayton, I was pretty skeptical. Then I realized that this is “the” Klayton from Circle of Dust…and I slipped it into the player and prepared for the unknown. Had he changed his style?
Much to my surprise, this guy has figured out a way to take little bits of goth, metal, industrial, and even some trance and turn it into something intriguing, if not downright awesome. Okay, so imagine a big blender…you throw in a bit of Machines of Loving Grace, Nine Inch Nails, Tool, Linkin Park, Chevelle, Korn, Ministry, and just a touch of Slayer…then hit the frappe button until it all liquefies and becomes a whipped up frenzy of noise and melody and aggression—all new and delicious. That’s about as close as I can come to describing it. There’s vicious heaviness in songs like “Own Little World” and “One Good Reason”, absolutely metallic and alienating, and two of the best songs on the disc. Then there’s a bit of electronic dance in the opening track “Switchback” and on “The Last Firstborn” (heavy metal guitars with heavy trance dance grooves…), which I have to be in the mood for, but that is not the only style that Klayton puts out on this disc. Also a nice addition is the track “I Believe You”, which has a special appearance by Jarrod Montague of Taproot. It sounds like something that should be in heavy rotation somewhere, but probably won’t be if this guy doesn’t get picked up by a major label. You may not have heard of Klayton or Celldweller, but that will all soon change as two of his songs are slated to be on the Matrix video game.
----Christine Natanael