Desdemona

The title of Desdemona’s third album makes a bad (read "worn out”) first impression, and listening to Version 3.0 does little to dispel it. Sonically, Desdemona is more or less on the right track, with a bad attitude and an angst-y industrial metal edge. The album is loaded with repetition though, and the results are far more tedious than emphatic — the songs are simple and the lyrics simplistic. Sometimes it works out okay, like in the track "Eternal Flame,” but some of the other songs, like the opener "Zombie,” for example, or "The Orgasm,” are just downright painful. If Desdemona is going for some sophisticated comment on humanity, Version 3.0 might qualify as a sincere, if unsuccessful, effort. Otherwise it’s just bad.