Any band that has programming listed by multiple people in their outfit creates a red flag for me. While this album was released Tuesday, my apologies to those who lined up Monday night to buy this without reading my review; I think that there will be ample copies left to purchase after today. For those of you who made a mad dash through never-never land to get your fingers on this album, congratulations and I am sorry.*

Now, this is not to say that the GodComplex is without merit. There are plenty of folks who believe that virtual reality and reality should coalesce into one being and the lines of distinction should blur imperceptibly until one is neither unconvinced nor persuaded that they are living the life of a video game character and that the music belting from their headphones merely entertains the fact even more.

However, listening to False Icons may very well leave you well, wanting to listen to true icons. The album God Complex left me wondering who pissed off the creator of the Matrix enough to let these boys unhinge themselves from the grid and escape their perfect little digital world and create a scene. Even Keanu Reeves would have to tell them to hook back into the mainframe until they could figure out the difference between the red chip and the blue.

God Complex starts off ambitiously enough; a nod to Rob Zombie meets early Metallica with a twist of Old Ozzy for good measure. It held all the promises of a computerized tech-kids wet dream but crashed mercilessly against the motherboard. A few paces in to Decay and the vocals clamored through a cacophonous symphony of distortion. Meaning, I could not understand a damn thing they were saying. "Tranquilizer" and "The Wheel" followed suit. Unfalteringly, my curiosity quickly turned to ennui. Without the aid of printed vocals accompanying the CD, I scrambled and strained to extract some meaningful life-altering analogies between their world and mine. No such luck. "Mystified" left me anything but, though I was curious to detect a Genesis thread, perhaps it was the similar theme. The song, "False Icons," did hold a kind of chaotic sexually charged element reminiscent of Type o Negative for a hot second and then teetered out without so much of a goodnight kiss.

Now, I get creative license and experimentalism and I can appreciate pushing the proverbial envelop a little harder than most to try and blend a bunch of genres into one and instill a little freshness to the scene. Industrial/metal legend Al Jourgensen, the mastermind behind Ministry and Revolting Cocks, and a vital member of Jello Biafra's Lard, and his lovely wife, Angie Jay stamped their sound all over this album, tried to create a parallel universe where the intersection of reality lay at the footstep of the mind but I am not buying it.

The truth of the matter is that the album fell flat, wasn't particularly daring, and reeked of over production. I envisioned myself one of those computer kids holed off in a compartmentalized space, empty coffee cups littering the floor and half-eaten bags of popcorn strewn about with a lone light bulb overhead casting an eerie glare below as I clutched at a joystick and killed make believe cyborgs to get in the mood. I would have even relented if I could imagine some cool cyber sex porn scene capitalizing on the noise emanating from this album. In the end, I felt like Kafka's Joseph K. a far cry from the intent of the album.