Servotron: Entertainment For Humans (Second Variety)

Musical shtick is only good if 1) you have the musical skills to back it up, 2) the shtick hasn't been done a million times before, and 3) the shtick is uncompromising and absolute, never revealing the seams. Shtick-wise, Servotron and Operation Re-Information both make the grade. In fact, it's almost a crime to refer to the latter as shtick: Its members all play Apple Macintosh computers as instruments, sampling/simulating drums, guitars, and even Commodore 64s. Their purported mission is to use technology to control and manipulate all information, as well as, of course, the people with whom it is associated. But there's more heart in ctrl than meets the eye. True, it's vaguely cold electronic music, but it shares Kraftwerk's innovative sideways-funk feel, as well as the aggro punch heard on Twitch-era Ministry records. The album, while great, runs a bit long at 22 songs and more than an hour; clocking in at half the length is Servotron's Entertainment For Humans (Second Variety). The Servotron hook is that its members are not humans at all, but androids here to rock us into submission, pretending to serve us while plotting a robot revolution. (Its membership form asks which is more important, the life of the entire human race or the life of a single toaster.) The actual members of Servotron come from Supernova and Man…Or Astroman, two acts that know their way around shtick. Musically, Servotron leans toward influences like Devo, placing more emphasis on pop than shock, and singing about about the virtues of being a robot and how great the field of robotics is. Amazingly, both bands are skilled enough to keep their acts from getting old, and both are especially worthy live. (ORI, P.O. Box 8224, Pittsburgh, PA 15217)