Almost Ambient Collection Volume One

Album Review

After the acoustic experiments (!!!) of Organica, Kill Switch...Klick continue to move away from their industrial-goth roots into a calmer, more mature sound. Divided about equally between new material and old tracks (some remixed, some not), 2002's Almost Ambient Collection, Vol. 1 makes the case that this move is more organic than it might seem at first, since leader D.A. Sebasstian has always had a taste for Eno-style minimalism (the excellent "Feeding the Machine (Day to Day)," which marries an almost lush soundtrack-inspired soundscape with some deliberately discordant Cecil Taylor-style piano fills, bears a strong Another Green World influence) along with the more obvious goth and industrial influences. Of the reworked material, the clear highlight is a re-recorded version of "Her Trembling Hands" with new vocals by guest singer Courtney Hudak that turns the somewhat overbearing original tune into a delicate This Mortal Coil-style meditation. The qualifier in the title is spot-on — there are beats aplenty here, just not particularly aggressive ones — but Almost Ambient Collection, Vol. 1 suggests an intriguing new direction for this on-again, off-again collective.