Sterilizer’s Self-Titled Release Will Get You Into The Soul-Crushing Thanksgiving Mood

Family means never facing each other without being armed with vast quantities of food and booze. This Thanksgiving, there’s nothing like the self-titled release from Sterilizer to really get into that punishing, terrifying, and soul-crushing mood. And if you’re not feeling particularly grateful or just don’t celebrate it, well, Thursday never looked so foreboding.

While a lot of albums seem to flounder and never quite find their footing, mistaking length for quality via over-blown tracks, each one less memorable than the one before it, Sterilizer spends precisely twenty-five minutes pummeling its industrial noise doom into you. From the robot army drilling of “Vasectomy” to the coked out almost-thrash of “Equalizer,” Sterilizer‘s precise, intricate, and clinical steel is the soundtrack to any 90s electro German film.

Each of the eight tracks contributes a different interpretation of the genre, building upon each other like chapters. The skittish introduction of “Revenge,” when paired with its methodical-yet-unrelenting barrage of beats, creates the sort of tonal unease that Al Jourgensen lost a few piercings back, while the samples of screams and distortion of “Humanity” bring to mind a pleasant day in a 1920s insane asylum. “Domination” is the most overtly electronic of all the songs, but it’s restraint in that aspect is what makes it a personal favorite. It’s so rhythmic, so mechanical almost that it could suit a psycho-punk movie or a space odyssey.

And the visual imagery Sterilizer inspires is one of its greatest strengths, because no matter which track you’re listening to, you’ll create a dark and unsettling image to go with it — it’s like an industrial, audio Rorschach test.

Sterilizer is available for streaming and purchase purchase here. Fair warning: if you search just the word “sterilizer,” you’re in for some educational internetting.