Heavy, dense, suffocating and massive: here comes Fausten, the new collaborative project by Monster-X and Stormfield. The whole is here more than the sum of its parts: far from replicating their breakcore, techno and dubstep solo tracks, these two musicians give birth here to a deep album which moves very slowly but does so with an unstoppable drive. Fausten's début is a misanthropic, oppressive work which reunites noise with modern production techniques as only these two renowned musicians could; a colossal, smart and twisted monster of coldness and inhumanity, of distortion, beats and subtle details. Get this 12" EP + CD / on CD / as digital files. Leave the dancefloor behind and rediscover your old taste for heavy sounds and oppressive atmospheres, but update that noise with the experience gained from years of incisive audio production. Such could be the motto behind Fausten's inception. The collaborative project project by Monster-X and Stormfield (both based in London), the dark, obscure and unsettling Fausten is as much a step-away from their regular output as the result of their skills. Both are primarily known for their hard dancefloor-oriented output: Monster X has released several breakcore records on such labels as Tigerbeat6 and Peace Off, while Stormfield is the driving force behind Combat Recordings and has released (besides his own tracks) material by King Cannibal, Scorn and Neil Landstrumm. Both have been praised over the years for their innovative, sharp and talented beat production, which they translate in a new way with Fausten. So much is given from the beginning till the end of this album: Fausten is dark, heavy, evil and noisy. And yet, it is a clear and modern take on the whole industrial sound. The goal here is not to emulate any old school scene, but to translate a taste for obscure, distorted sound into a fresh new whole. May it be the downtempo huge percussion of "Punishment" or the precise beat-work of "Evisceration", Fausten uses a wide sonic palette and bridges genres. There might be remains of a dubstep tempo here or a trace of breakbeats there, but all molten into a new whole. This diversity is underlined towards the end of this album by three distinct remixes: Oyaarss adds his sense of doom-ridden misanthropy, Dadub keep the noise level high while speeding the beat, introducing the final techno-stomper remix by Ontal. Diving into Fausten's music is a guarantee for a deep, encompassing journey, all the more in combination with the twisted artwork and the very "adult" live videos used during this act's live shows. It is not devoid of humour (we're dealing with experienced musicians who know how to crack a joke in their darkest moments), but it is most importantly the highly rewarding combination of heaviness, darkness and details. After all, it does start with a portal and ends with a scalpel.