Hallucinating

Taking a page from Rob Zombie's devil disco songbook with its panting female samples and relentless downbeats, Apartment 26 introduced themselves to the aggro and nu-metal crowd formally with this 2000 Hollywood Records release. Keyboardist/programmer A.C. Huckvale deserves credit for squeezing some nifty squeaks and beats out of his machinery while fellow band members (vocalist Biff, guitarist Jon Greasley, drummer Kevin Temple, and bassist Louis Cruden) offer capable, if not entirely distinct performances. Out of the 14 tracks included on Hallucination, at least half have a fairly directly correlative (if not entirely derivative) relationship with the work of Zombie. Most notable in this respect is the intro to "Doing It Anyway," a sonic match with it's buzz-saw guitar groove splattered over the juiced-up boogie fever beats -- a once-unique amalgam. While Biff sounds nothing like Zombie (or any memorable vocalist) the singer's howls and whispers don't strike a sinister chord of their own. Faceless and derivative, Hallucination has a phat sound, but a flat soul. ~ Vincent Jeffries|