Relentlessly Industrial: Orgy's 1998 Debut Opus - 'Candyass'

ORGY: CANDYASS

SCORE: 86/100

Candyass serves as the debut album of Orgy, with their sound being deeply industrial with heavy sounds that immediately made a name for the band - this album still remains the most well known out of their iconic three-album run, and the album includes incredible artistry that showcases Orgy as one of the best bands to ever come out of the 90's industrial boom. 

This album is relentlessly industrial - it's heavy with clashing sounds that bite and snarl, with factory-esque synths and digital drum mechanics that create a thick, pounding atmosphere that will leave any industrial fans entirely pleased throughout the entirety of the album. 

The band has described Candyass as "death pop" [Punk Statik Paranoia], but the masses have largely considered Orgy to be a nu-metal band due to Jay Gordon's producorial efforts on the self-titled album by Coal Chamber, as well as Jonathan Davis being a close collaborator as a guest vocalist on the album. Despite mixed labels, the album is industrial through and through within every single element - and it is one of the most influential albums of the late 90's corner. The songs are catchy and completely infectious, it's a deeply atmospheric album that will rope you in and take you along with it, and the entire album format alongside the pacing in which the band took on for the album works wonders. 

Gordon has an incredibly unique vocal style that blends clean vocals with low singing that creates a steady vocal performance set throughout the album that makes it stick even harder than one might expect for it to. The songs are absolutely otherworldly in their instrumentation and vocal calibers, with the sonic elements of the album being invigorating and all-consuming in their consistency and deep grooves. 

Every moment of static and instrumentation creates something with a harsh jaw and an incredibly captivating net of sound, and the webs of musicianship created by Orgy within this album are something that no other band could capture on a scale like this. 

The album focuses heavily on reverberating sounds and a heavy atmosphere, with recognizable vocals and a mix of both well known and hidden gem songs making this an album that no industrial fan should ever skip out on. The mix of metal/rock music and electronic industrial elements make this project an absolute must, and the incredible output from each member of the band is something truly stunning even almost three decades later.

When an album that has been on the market for so long still sounds rejuvenating and fresh decades later - that's how you know when an artist is truly skilled in what they do, with Orgy being one of the most lifechanging industrial bands for me personally, their second album especially helping to shape my summers and mark one of the most important eras of my lifetime thus far. Both this album and Vapor Transmission are futuristic pieces of industrial bliss that will never grow cold, and this album will always be just as good as it was when it was initially released. 

Not only is the album stunning in terms of quality and cohesiveness, it's also an album that has a shocking amount of variety. Every song is different from the last, and the fact that the band managed to use so many different sounds at once in the same album is truly something stunning. It's an album that keeps the listener hooked with unique and varied sounds that morph into new scales and sonic encounters through different atmospheres and levels of grit, and the band made sure to make their debut one of the most important and memorable pieces of introductory material on the market - no one would be forgetting them anytime soon, not after an album like this one.