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2 of 4 found the following review helpful:
 Stabbing Westward in all there industrial hard rock glory!!! Mar 26, 2006
The first is always the best, well... in this case it is. Stabbing Westward is one my favorite rock bands, its to bad they broke up, but this album in my opinion is their best album. Its much more heavy in terms of industrial rock than the other four albums they did and when you compare it to their last album the band does not even sound same. Chris halls voice is a lot different in this album then the other three albums they did(especially the last album, althought chris's voice is slighly similar between UNGOD and Wither Blister & Peel) My favorite songs in order are THROW, UNGOD, NOTHING, CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, LIES, CONTROL, ACF, LOST and whatever rest tracks that are left are good too. My second favorite Stabbing Westward album is Wither Blister Burn & Peel, then Darkest Days and then their self titled album which i didnt really like, except a couple of tracks.
2 of 4 found the following review helpful:
 For Comparative Purposes Jan 26, 2006
Listen to this album and Filter's SHORT BUS back to back and hear the similarities. Particularly on "Hey Man, Nice Shot" and "Ungod." You see, Stabbing Westward started with a guitarist, I forget his name, who would leave after UNGOD and join Filter just in time for SHORT BUS. It appears he took his riffs with him.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
If this is watered down Nine Inch Nails, Sep 02, 2005
then watered down NIN is great.
While probably not their most diverse album (I would give the nod to Darkest Days) this is probably right up there with Darkest Days as their best. If nothing else, it's their most depressing.
Lost, which is pretty much an intro to Control is great, and Control doesn't break the momentum. 'Nothing' would be a heck of a lot better if they rewrote the insessive, 'I don't want it, I don't need it' lyrics (I heard you the first 10 times Chris)..
Acf is a great lead up to the meat of the album, which consists of Lies, Ungod, Throw, and Violent Mood Swings. Throw is by far the best track on the CD. An angst riddled, depressing song that just never seems to let up.
Red and White and Can't Happen Here bring the tone of the album down to an even more depressing state. In fact, by the end of Can't Happen Here, you pretty much really don't want to do anything except listen to the CD again...
So do yourself a favor.. Go ahead and buy this CD. If you don't want to listen to it know, put it away until that 'special little lady' rips your heart out, throws it on the ground and stomps all over it. Then get it out and play it. Will it help? No. Will it make you feel any better? No, but it will give you a better excuse for being so d@mn depressed.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
One of the best Industrial albums of the 90's Jul 19, 2005
I first saw the video for the song "Nothing" on Much Music in mid 1994. IN the summer of 1994 I found the CD (I was poor) in a second hand CD shop and bought it immediately. This was a few months after having seen the Nothing video ONE TIME ONLY - but from the video I knew I liked the sound. I liked NIN, Ministry, PWEI and this sound was right along those lines.
Boy am I glad I picked this CD up. It was stunning. I do like some of Stabbing Westward's other albums tremendously but this one takes the cake. It really is a powerful journey that flows nicely from start to finish with extremely catchy floor-pounding songs. Yes that's right floor-pounding. The way this album was recorded is perfect. If you like the thundering bass of Tool's "Undertow" or Rage Against The Machine's eponymous debut then you'll love the levels the kick drum and bass are recorded on this album. Very nice and deep to give your subs a true workout without being intrusive of the rest of the music.
Naturally this CD is best played loud! :-)
From the beginning you can see why there are comparison's to Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine and Broken EP releases. It is wise to keep in mind though that Ungod was released on February 15th, 1994 whilst The Downward Spiral was released a few weeks later on March 8th, 1994 - so there's no logic in saying anything on Ungod was borrowed from Trent's Spiral.
The album's intro leads to Control which opens with a machine gun barrage of guitar and drums. The verse hits you with hardly any guitar but great synth sounds and a bass line to die for that gives new meaning to the saying, "bass - how low can you go?" Hearing this first song Control really let me know I was in for a treat with this record.
Nothing, which was Stabbing Westward's first ever single, is probably my least favourite song on the album. It's not bad but the rest of the album I think was far better.
ACF, Lies and Ungod blend so well you will no doubt listen to them through quite a few times in this order. Lies and Violent Mood Swings are the flat out heaviest songs on the album. I fond myself squeezing a fist when I listen to Violent Mood Swings, it really is a very danceable yet "kick you in the teeth" kind of song. Red and White seems to borrow a little from "Help Me I Am In Hell" by NIN but has much more to the beginning of the song (including lyrics)
The final track on the album, Can't Happen Here, is my absolute favourite. This song is just perfect and I have no doubt even now that to add or remove anything from this song would be to ruin it. Just when you think you're approching the end of the album the band comes exploding through your mind with the refrain "It just can't happen here." What I really love about this refrain at the end is they don't ruin it by only playing it once or twice - it comes at you a good eight times! The drums are perfect and if you don't find yourself with a body full of taut tendons then you weren't really listening. This is the most powerful song off the album. Isn't that one of the best ways to end an album? To start strong and finish strong? You may feel almost out of breath at the conclusion of this album, which is why the three bell-tones to end the album give you that brief cool down!
I was fortunate enough on October 24th, 1994 to see Stabbing Westward open up for Killing Joke at The Opera House in Toronto, Ontario. They were touring their first album and their show was so powerful. I think I was the only person at the show to have a Stabbing Westward t-shirt on but by the end of their set I think everyone had the name Stabbing Westward on their minds.
This is truly one of the better albums of the 90's. Do yourself a favour and check it out particularly if you like Stabbing Westward's other material. You will not be dissappointed with this purchase.
3 of 6 found the following review helpful:
Good. Apr 23, 2004
Frequently compared to Nine Inch Nails--who are themselves only a shadow of the true industrial genre cast on the pop world--this band is pop-industrial at best. They're a band for the 13-17 age group who are consumed by self-centered angst. "Ungod" is unquestionably this band's best release. The quality of their albums has steadily diminished with each release, until finally reaching the abysmal nadir of their self-titled CD, which is utterly unlistenable. Still, their first effort shows some true creativity and a glimmer of the uncompromising, challenging ideal that is industrial. The rest of the reviewers need to be educated on the definition of 'industrial'. The fact that nobody has ever posted a similar denunciation here is evidence that people who know what industrial is do not listen to this music. Needless to say, you see my comments here because I have a soft spot for this worthy attempt at something big.
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