The s@tur@tion CD-Audio/CD-ROM;-

Drum Media

SAME shit, different day. Saturation are fairly much fixtures on bills on the heavier end of town. They're sure as eggs angry about something. Well just about everything really. If looking for exactly right thing for them to be support to, add Insurge and stir lightly. Again, above, a bigger approach in the production would see them happily sit on a MMM playlist, with title track having the potential to thump, but just getting a bit fiddly as it goes on, losing some of the point. For an indie band to have the CD-ROM stuff up and going as well is a show of initiative, but maybe if the money had been spent on a bigger amp...

Ross Clelland, Drum Media (Sydney Streetpaper), Singles Review (Although it's an 8trk CD), Sydney, Australia, 10th November 1998

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The s@tur@tion demo;-

'Your Mind Is A Sponge'

HM Magazine

The first impression I had of this tape was pretty damn good. The second was that it sounded a lot like its potential influences, which isn't always a bad thing. Lastly, and definitely not leastly, was the fact that in all places they sounded better than the original.

Now you may be thinking, 'How can this be so?', but really, if this did happen to be, say...the new Nine Inch Nails or Faith No More album for example, it would be rockin' to rave reviews all over the country.

Formed from the best parts of a couple of projects, and whilst their bio doesn't actually confirm this as such, it would be fair to say that their advances have been technological as well as musical. An internet site and a recording studio now make up two very important parts of the saturation arsenal. Let's hope we hear more from this incarnation.

Justin Owen HM Magazine (formerly Hot Metal), Demo Nation, Demo of the month, Sydney, Australia, July 1996

hEARd

Whilst Insurge are doing the biz in the industrial arena in Australia, they have worthy cohorts rising from the Sydney area, Saturation. Saturation open their 8-track demo with "Violate Me", a song that would do Nine Inch Nails proud, although the style is more pop-oriented than that band, perhaps more similar to Insurge's Speculator.

Overall production is excellent, sounding really cool, something really hard for a tape to do, although well worthy of a commercial production. The tape is divided into 2 sides, the first being the regular mix of all the tracks, the second providing remixes of each track. Best tracks from the tape come in the form of the remixes of "God/Hate/Love", a blistering noisefest, while "Man From Mars" remix is also a killer, guitars razor-sharp & backed by relentless drumming - brilliant.

You can write to them at Pegleg Management, P.O. Box 878, Strawberry Hills, NSW, 2010 hEARd, Sydney/Central Coast streetpaper, July 1996

Industrial Nation (issue #16)

Saturation - Demo This demo features four songs of heavy, guitar oriented industrial, as well as more electronically oriented remixes of each track. Helmet seems to be the biggest influence here (their signature stop-start rhythms, especially), with maybe even a slight Pantera influence at times (the call and response shouts on songs like "God/Hate/Love"). Overall though, Saturation's music has a much brighter temperament than those bands which may turn off many readers of this zine... This was recorded back in 1995 though, so god knows how they may have changed, or if, indeed they are even still together.

(no other details supplied)

Sounds From The Street

Expressive, subversive, angry, dark, moody - this is Saturation, according to their 8-track demo, which includes one remix of each of the four side-one tracks

So who are Saturation? They are the remains of a once full-on hard-rock outfit who chose to distance themselves from their vocalist as quickly as possible, get another one and change the direction of their creativity. Now they are a full on hard-rock outfit who use a little extra technology to get their message across, with a tad more aggression.

Did I say aggression? With titles like Violate Me and remixes called "saturated head fuck mix" and "gutless radio mix", what else could you call it?!! And so to the songs, which start with the aforementioned Violate Me adopting a Trent Reznor attitude and previous-guise volume; Man From Mars drops the attitude only; and Me Generation and God/Hate/Love chunk away to the close of side one; the latter of which goes back to the NIN influence!

To the remixes, and this is where the technology takes over - God/Hate/Love (psycho trance mix) loses what attitude it had while aiming at possibly another market than the initial version; Me Generation (saturated head-fuck mix) is actually a tad better than the original mix as far as expressing their attitude. The last two "gutless radio" mixes have an obvious commercial market in mind, but only Violate Me loses it when the sample is chopped and when the favourite expletive is deleted instead of replaced (like in NIN's Closer, Prince's Sexy MF).

Without being dull and predictable, Saturation seem to be going for the Australian NIN stakes and in that respect will do well. The Man From Mars remix seems to be the only one that will be added to Sounds from the Street, but who knows what non-gutless radio will do!?

Peter (Jacky) Gleeson Sounds From The Street, 2CCR FM, Sydney Australia, June 1996

Form Guide

Starts off with a repeated sample "die fucker" and turns into a Discordia/Insurge/Ragewar style industrial grind thing. The heart of the band though is far more that of hard rock than anything technology based. Best compared to The Cult.

**1/2 Form Guide, local music streetpaper, Melbourne, Australia, June 1996