Borg 64
Anywhere but Here

“You will be assimilated, your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own” might be what this band would say when they fly around in the cubical ships. Then I notice that their website is called Unimatrix zero which makes me think that they could be part of that dissident group of the Borg. If you have no idea what I am on about I can say that I suspect that these guys from Luleå in northern Sweden has taken inspiration for their name from Start Trek and that they probably have been watching Star Trek Voyager considering the name of their debut album which was released in 2005. This is an EP or a ten inch vinyl for those who prefer that and it is one that is described as a combination of furious hardcore punk and electronic mayhem. If that sounds interesting to you, then perhaps you should read on.

Musically it is punkish hardcore that is being spiced up by some electronic stuff that sounds a bit like the music from video games that were popular quite long ago, like the old NES stuff from the eighties and nineties. It is an interesting combination of sounds I would say, the vocals might not be good but at least you hear what the guy is singing. The EP is not particularly long with just twelve minutes of playing time and neither is it very varied as the electronic parts makes the songs sound fairly similar. Decently produced is it and quite unique I would suspect.

But having fantasy and being unique is not the same as being good, the songs are just not good enough to interest me and though I can praise the idea behind the music, I cannot praise the quality of it. Alright, it is not bad but neither is it good so I would say that to me this feels like a slightly below average album. The first track is fairly good while the following three with Star Trek inspired Late Nights at Quarks and the one that bears the name of their home town Luleå are just not interesting tracks and I cannot in any sense of the way say that this album has assimilated me so I am not so sure about this Borg collective.

If you like this kind of inventive but quite messy music I suppose that you will find this quite entertaining, if you don’t like this kind of music or hardcore music in general then I don’t think you will like this either. Shame as I would have liked a band that partly shares the name with one of the best screen villains ever to be one of the best bands ever, but Borg 64 just aren’t. I am sure they will be amazing to a certain small group of people while the rest of us just shrug our shoulders and moves on to the next album or to Star Trek First Contact, so I don’t expect them to assimilate any considerable number of people with help of this.

HHHHHHH