Hitting the speakers with an incredibly dense recording of zombie sequencers going haywire, Skinny Puppy's 2013 effort The Weapon is an instantly recognizable return to form for the veteran electro-industrial group, and a sure about-face from the film-worthy, large-landscape music the group has released since the millennium turned. Still, the album is filled with current events and musical progress, the former represented by the album's disgust with 2013's gun culture, hence the album's title. The latter is represented by a whole mess of little touches, spanning from the sublime (check the breakbeat of "saLvo" for something equally ominous and funky) to the ridiculous (lead singer Ogre stuns with an almost-rap during "Wornin'," spitting "We'll make you feel the Jim Jones vibe" in a rare blast of knowingly hip). The music is busy, kinetic, attractive, and stimulating in the spirit of the group's golden age and the songwriting is in top form, giving up more singalong choruses than ever before, all of them caked and covered with messages of peace, disgust, and the dismantling of Babylon. This is a vicious blow against the empire, and an electro-industrial winner released when few were asking for one, but most of all, The Weapon is the welcome resurrection of that classic Skinny Puppy album, coming just as the band enters its 30th year of existence.
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