"The Cleansing (Re-Issue)" - Worm Gear
This is a re-issue CD of sorts pulling together material from various out of print releases. Included are tracks from the original "The Cleansing" 3" on Frozen Empire Media, the tracks from the "Praying to Bleed" 7" on LSDO, two tracks from the "Field Tales" compilation on Hospital Prod., and one track from the "Bitmapping" compilation on Objective-Subjective for a total of 9 tracks all together. Everything on the CD has been re-mastered and comes in a snazzy slip sleeve. If you aren't familiar with Control yet this might be a good taster since it pulls material from different time periods together, if you are there may be some rarities here you weren't able to track down. It seems like I say this a lot, but I really feel Control is a project that should be seen as the measuring stick to judge other Power Electronics projects by because it is consistently stellar material. The detail in the music, the clarity of the production, the originality in the sound design, tasteful use of sampling and the fury in the vocals all build something denser, more evocative and genuinely powerful than what many are accustomed to hearing from this genre.

"Natural Selection" - Worm Gear
Control is a project that genuinely gets better with each release, beginning as a somewhat straight forward but layered Power Electronics entity with the self titled releases on Malignant/Black Plagve each subsequent CD has developed the sound, incorporating a pummeling pseudo structure at the foundation and tightly weaving unique and distinct sounds though out that ominous root work. "Natural Selection" is the most recent evolution in the metamorphosis. Heavy low end cycles and grinds away beneath these tracks with a hypnotic crush, and the elaborate abrasions splash and scrape atop it. Added to this mix are impassioned vocals filtered through diverging effects palettes so as not to become redundant in their attack. Having listened to as much of this kind of music as I have this is a project that never ceases to give me pause and wonder what the hell is wrong with so many others. It is densely layered and finitely pieced together with some of the most intriguing sounds going to create a Frankenstein's monster of hulking dread and contempt. So much of Power Electronics is about the vocals where as Control never sacrifices the music or the emotional weight at the alter of rhetoric. "Natural Selection" is bloated with the best the Death Industrial and Power Electronics scenes have to offer in craftsmanship and is produced with crystalline detail so nothing that went into it goes overlooked. Exceptional.

"Misanthrope" - Twilight Zone E-Zine
This new release of Thomas Garrison's CONTROL project is not only a solid work, it is absolutely recommended! If you like simplifying descriptions: this is High-Quality Power-Electronics, but not only. CONTROL is a style for itself. The third release in a row of excellence - different artworks and labels, but the contents all of the same quality-standard. Great vocals like ever! I have to get much more deeper into it, still. All in all it's just a first impression , but I had expected it nt being only highpitched frequencies+noise. Very varied effects offer enjoyable listening, instead... If you're intoCONTROL, here is another addition to this great music-project! (BTW, I had searched over three weeks for "degenerate"-mag-interview and nearly ordered that mag a second time - just to read the interview with Thomas again...)

"Misanthrope" - Worm Gear Zine #12
Control is a Power Electronics project that shames so many other Power Electronics projects. The material is so meticulously constructed and detailed, so conscious of creating mood and atmosphere, that it almost defies the genre that it caters to. The music is woven tightly with layers of diverse frequency, grating loops, catacombal drift, throbbing analog, absolutely trenchant vocals and not just simply tantruming over simplistic noise and feedback like so many bedraggled PE projects that get far more respect. Control transcends the pure rage associated with the genre and reveals the darker, more infectious and sinister emotions that build that rage. The hurt and contemplation and introspection that swells between the fingers of a life losing perspective on it's way to detonation. These elements are all found smeared and drowning in the musical din, the occasionally rhythmic pulses, the cacophonous stabs. The corrosive vocals slice through the swells, but are placed in the mix as much like another instrument as anything else. It is not all about the "message" as so many PE acts have been in the past. It is about arousing the listener with atmosphere and creating a sonic environment where nothing good seems possible for people who might inhabit it. With each release Control has expanded it's sound and honed it's vision, and "Misanthrope" is a clear example that Power Electronics need not be a one dimensional endeavor. In fact that it's true power, and exploring the perversions of the mind as so many PE projects do, is better revealed when explored through their many layers and not simply as the ravings of a derelict.

"The Cleansing" - Immanence E-Zine
Thomas Garrison of Control has gained something of a name for himself, releasing material on Malignant, Freak Animal and Troniks as well as his more death industrial material on Crionic Mind (under the name of Exsanguinate). The design for this 3" cdr was produced by Crionic Media, and as always for FEM looks excellent.... This latest release features just under 21 minutes of densely constructed power electronics, very loud and very distorted. One of the things that makes Control stand away from the simply generic is his obviously strong ability to construct tracks that are extremely heavy, but with shifts that create contrast and texture rather than just constant attack. There is a enormously human element to this release, wherein the saturated noise and chaos feels controlled (no pun intended) and aggressively guided rather than random. This creates a sound which is all the more effective in its impact... There is no real diversification of style on this release, this is power electronics from beginning to end, but Garrison does it with such great skill and attention to composition that the produced tracks are memorable rather than just washing over you with yet another barrage of noise.... Another excellent release for Frozen Empire Media. - Dave Dando-Moore

"The Cleansing" - Recycle Your Ears E-Zine
You know there is something weird with a band when you notice that you had to wait its fourth release to have a cover art that didn't feature a woman's corpse. But if Control's Thomas Garrison seems to have a problem with the member of the opposite sex, he stills remains one of the extremely few purveyors of good power electronics. And once congratulations have been sent for Frozen Empire Media and Scott Scandey (Gruntsplatter / Crionic Mind) for having a cover art which actually looks good. It is time to hear how Mr Garisson chose to put his issues into sound this time.... First track, and already a good one, "Disease" is a thick and powerful walls of noise that has all the grittyness of the best Control material. Once again, one of the things I appreciate about this act is the extremely high level of overdrive applied to the voice, which makes the lyrics absolutely impossible to understand (which is probably better this way) and integrate them very well with the bubbly, rusty distortion that constitute the music. Things get a little calmer (if I dare say so) with "Deciding Factor", a more linear noise track, instrumental this time (but with some voice samples) but featuring some distant random percussions that might actually have been accoustically recorded. "Cleansing", paradoxically, is less dense and leaves more room for the vocals, sounding a bit more like typical power electronics. But things get heavy once again with the final "Elite", which mixes more or less the elements of all the other tracks into a ear piercing, changing and thick wall of noise enriched with some extremely distorted vocals.... Frozen Empire Media sticks to its noise edge with this 3" CDR, and manages to get the best out of Control. I don't listen to power electronics a lot anymore (if at all), but by put more emphasis on the noise than on the whole perversion / frustration issues, Control manages to write good, dense tracks that work pretty well. And since you get only four tracks, there is no overdose to be afraid of here. Here is something the fans won't miss, and which also turns out to be good item for people curious about Control.

"The Cleansing" + "Filth"- Sekuencias De Culto E-Zine
Wasn't "Algolagnia" enough for you? Are you missing more of the corruption, decadence and degeneracy that the last Control's instalment provided? Thank heavens, boy... Mr. Garrison has come back again and "The Cleansing" goes deeper into the morbid feeling that he has been offering, slightly increased recently due to the Death Industrial atmospheres added to the band's trademark.... Four tracks, for a total length of 20:57, proving the evolutionary path that the sound is following and that the last complete work announced: the same use of walls of noise but in the service of more darkness, and a higher presence of Thomas' voice. Summarily we can point the heavier weight that his parallel project, Exsanguinate, has probably left in his P.E. side. So maybe you're wondering: distributing the songs in two different identities that seem to share a common attitude does still make sense? Of course it does! After all, it would be hard for Control to loose its remarked personality and after all we can take the referred development as everything but drastic: it's just a natural advance... "Disease" is the perfect example for what I was saying. Ok, it starts with some synth low waves, but wait for the twentieth second and... voila! An impenetrable barrage of the more dense feedback you could imagine rushes into making a clean sweeping of my previous statements. Noisy in the Thomas' best tradition, but there's something different, and that's the use of voice I was speaking of. Not only heartrending screams and yells (plenty of them, for sure), but samples, whispers and even lyrics with a higher prominent role. An aspect that I remarked not so enthusiastically while reviewing the Freak Animal release were those occasional standard P.E. vocals, but the most lovely thing is that this is not the typical product of the genre, actually it never was completely the case, but now they seem more integrated in the roughest Control's distinctive parts and mixing a wider range of means in a single track (as I've said, from the softest recitations to the most roughly twisted high-pitches); more personally elaborated. "Deciding factors" is rough too, but in a different way: the big amount of additional sounds is not so flattened by the avalanche of distortion, there's room for more elements but always from a harsh approach, conforming a kind of scrapping atmospheric cut, whose intensity gets crusher as it goes on. I think "The cleansing" is a special piece. It carries the ambient elements of, for instance, the previous track, but it takes some steps further than what the first CD could make us think. Repetitive patterns (much in the vein of the mentioned Death Industrial practice) with the characteristic screeching paraphernalia and Thomas shrieking sicker than ever, although my little complaint goes for the voice once more: despite all that I've said, adding an improved variety of registers, as in track number one, will make the song win the decisive mark, I think. All in all, it will become one of the highlights in its discography, no doubt; the same that "Elite", the fourth chapter, deserves. More depraved moods, sampled spoken words, clattering and filtered desperation''' everything well packed in the prominent barriers of Noise and becoming a perfect example of the new anxiety feeling "a la Control"... As I've emphasized since the commencement, I think this is a step further in Control's sound from what the previous effort presented, a perfection collecting the best essential philosophy of its sound, cathartic through strength, while winking at the insane atmospheres it oozes. Something that a maxim like this one, included in the third track's lyrics that gives the name to the whole disc, can easily sum up: "Cleaning is the point, Clean to make you Clean". It's cleaner now, indeed... As a plus I wouldn't like to pass by the opportunity to comment another new release of the band that, probably because of its brief length and absurdly limited edition (55 copies), has gone unnoticed in an unfortunate manner. "Filth" is the name of this 1" CDR card that PACRec, the Troniks sub-label, has brought out granting a superb injection of suffering and... yeah, filth, for 5 minutes and 17 seconds. It follows the same patterns of the above considered cuts: a sombre atmospheric beginning, sampled voices, gradual addition of rawness, etc., since all the five pieces were composed during the same of period of time (April-June 2002). As I've said, a kind of excellent plus for "The cleansing" that you should heed if you get the chance. All I can do is to encourage you to get this sort of uncut diamonds that the MCDs usually are; a format that seems to be somewhat far from the general public tastes (even if we're currently living a renaissance of the 3") and the perfect platform for these lovely aperitifs, concise and charmingly completed; still more appealing when the content is so splendid.... Quantity or quality? No doubt, Control in whichever layout.

"Algolagnia" - Sekuencias De Culto E-Zine
It's no secret that the Power Electronics genre has experienced an enthralling revitalization in the last years that has brought us a big bunch of excellent newcomers; but obviously this renaissance has an expensive price that should be paid, as the great stuff never comes alone, and the phenomenon has generated a big amount of repetitive "personality-less" bands too, along with a general stagnation of fresh ideas in the entire scene... Fortunately Control is one of those newcomers with the ability to make the thing still interesting. Its first full length on Malignant was the less recommendable release a claustrophobic person should get; someone could say its dense atmosphere didn't let the whole thing breath, resulting in an unpleasant experience when heard from the beginning till the end without a single pause, but I'd dare to say that its oppressive, rather chaotic atmosphere was without doubt what we enjoyed most so far, wasn't it? The constant obnoxious feeling that surrounded the entire work, provided a sick, decadent, perverted mood that I took as Control's trademark. That, together with its extremely noisy sound and the almost total absence of predominant vocals, made the difference between one of those raucous average American bands and this outstanding outfit. Despite this, Thomas Garrison returns with a new CD on Freak Animal that, while keeping part of those distinctive notes in the previous edition, adds new perspectives to his sound; some of them seem were previously announced, though only in part and now they acquire a new aspect (I'd mention "The sickness" for instance). But let's take a brief trip through the songs to explain what I'm actually referring to... "Deviant", the first track, starts with some deep ambient sounds that make you wonder if you've inserted the wrong CD in your player; however, quickly some scrapping sounds appear and the thing gets harder and really dark; those Control walls of noises that you were expecting for won't appear in the interim, but on the other hand you'll have a decadent environment 'a la death industrial, a little harsher perhaps, and some undistorted voices in the background emphasizing the feeling and adding a new dimension to the violent act. Rumbling bass sounds at the beginning of "A will to power", and at last the walls appear in a song that could be included in its untitled CD; screaming saturated vocals can be heard too, that, while without being the leading source, I believe are less hidden than they used to be. The third track gives the album its name and again the structure is more or less the same: at the beginning those deep waves and then the harsh feedback and crushing soundscapes. Here you can find what I really love when talking about Control: the guy is talented enough to make overwhelming P.E. songs without lyrics, even sometimes more in the vein of pure Noise (the genre), and with a fascinating development that makes you pay attention until the last second. What I'm trying to say is that I esteem more when he utilizes voice as another noise resource than when this is employed to, well, let's say "sing". Obviously, that apparent chaos is really well "controlled", he knows what he's managing and how to do it. But then it's time for "No remorse", and here we find those typically distorted, flanged, echoed and "whatevered" authoritarian recitations so common in the second P.E. wave we've been living lately; the background is a bit less complex this time and with some synth surroundings to provide an appropriate basis for the prominent speech. The fifth track can be easily described reading its title: "Suffering", i.e. crude surfaces and high pitched feedback for another sounding nightmare. "Geradehalter" has a slower development, it starts from the deepest harmonies as well, but noise is so gradually increased while the general tone gets slowly, progressively richer. "Scenes of torture" is more in the vein of the obscure "Deviant", full of atmosphere; they are for sure rasping, but not that much. "Seething" has more insane vocals, ultrafiltered this time, and the final result is more delighting than in "No remorse", in part due to its more intricate construction and to its attractive demented temper. Maybe the ninth cut, "The need to kill", will remind you of Slogun, doesn't it?; but it's just the name, the sound could be easily related to the first Control CD again: pretty brilliant moment with those hardly identifiable vocals, more like sound waves. "Submit" is quite gloomy once more, with low frequencies at its beginning that will be shaded by the rough mess and some hardly audible screeches. And in the end it's "Time to day" with those principal and almost robotic evil vocals: not the best track if you ask me, although that voice makes it sound fairly weird and perhaps it's trying to offer something slightly different to finish.... What I like most here is how some of the original Control sonic features are still present, particularly the tyrannical ones, and how the structures plus a wider range of sounds (from very strong ones to some atmospheric touch - very few, really - here and there) are now used to provide an extra dose of sick depravity to the whole feeling; but on the other hand, I think the standard filtered vocals make it loose some points regarding to originality, something we're especially missing these days in Power Electronics. All in all, this is an enjoyable release; if you're a freak of the kind you shouldn't miss it (I bet you won't), and if you like to purchase some harsh release from time to time, this is one of the best you could think of this year. - Marcos Alcocer