The first few releases from Cincinnati synth punk trio
the Serfs were raw and visceral in a way that made them hard to place in time. The unstable songs and unpolished production could have easily passed for obscure '80s minimal wave or lesser-known industrial synth pop from the '90s, despite being created multiple decades later. The band's third album,
Half-Eaten by Dogs, expands the parameters of their dungeonous atmospheres, adding the slightest bit of a human touch by mixing organic instrumentation with cold industrial elements. While the unfeeling synth arpeggios, cavernous vocals, and pounding drum machine of a song like "Cheap Chrome" are in line with the stark energy of earlier material, there are also experiments with new sounds like the especially frantic live drumming on opening track "Order Imposing Sentence" and the unexpected harmonica that pops up intermittently on the otherwise
New Order-by-way-of-early-
Ministry-sounding "Electric Like an Eel." Although the interesting instrumentation and inclusion of melodic, nearly danceable tracks like the darkly peppy "Club Deuce" might normally suggest a band moving towards cleaner production,
Half-Eaten by Dogs is markedly less refined than the group's second album, 2022's
Primal Matter. The songwriting on some tracks (such as the anxiously upbeat "Suspension Bridge Collapse") continues the influence of electronic body music and industrial dance music that was prevalent on
Primal Matter, but the production is hissy and homespun, and the majority of the album's second half takes on the quality of a blown-out goth rock demo tape. The gleaming synths and overly excitable drums of "The Dice Man Will Become" are where
the Serfs hit their stride in this more flesh-and-blood mode, though the drawn-out torment of the slower, angstier tune "Ending of the Stream" is just as enjoyable. Even with the twists in songwriting, production, and presentation,
Half-Eaten by Dogs is curiously cohesive, probably due in part to the high quality of the songs themselves and
the Serfs' ability to contort their sound into fascinatingly mangled shapes and still get their point across. ~ Fred Thomas
