tweaker: the attraction to all things uncertain

Vrenna's music offers angst couched in clinical detachment. Drawing heavily on electronic music, he employs a range of synthetic sounds and styles, all used to lackluster effect. Each song is a vague pastiche of morose beats and blips lacking in both energy and originality, and begging comparison to the more sophisticated work of Vrenna's various collaborators.

It's really a case of too many cooks spoiling the goth: Attraction chokes beneath a barrage of influences, from industrial to house to ambient to prog, with the odd sitar thrown in for good measure. The tracks leap from one genre to another, trying to evoke the sonic fusion of NIN's The Downward Spiral (whose sound Vrenna unabashedly apes throughout the album) but lacking the tragic lyricism and compositional skill that made that album great. Where Reznor was able to synthesize a multitude of styles into symphonies of despair, Vrenna comes across as a sorcerer's apprentice, manipulating powers beyond his control. "Swamp," featuring blasts of noisy, distorted guitars, bores with its been- there, heard-that inevitability. And when Vrenna, trying to get his gothic on, asks, "Are there more like me/there's just got to be," it sounds like the Cure trying to pull off romantic alienation 15 years ago—but they had the mascara to match. While Vrenna's skills as a producer are considerable, as an artist he offers a promise yet unfulfilled. (Six Degrees) —Ana Nersessian

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