Cause & Effect

Album Review

As a celebration of ITN's longevity and a sign of the sometimes not always apparent influence they've had over the moons, Cause + Effect is a fine, enjoyable collection, featuring a slew of artists old and young reworking a number of songs from all over the band's extensive collection of work. Unsurprisingly, given the Wax Trax association the group had in the late '80s, there's an industrial/electronic body music bent to many of the new versions, with one of the most surprising coming from the breakbeat-meets-drone excellence of Attrition's revision of "To the Faithful." The goth underground pays a bit of homage as well, with Faith & the Muse serving up a duly spooked-out take on "Angelorum" that amps up all the majesty of the song to an impressive degree, while one-time tourmates And Also the Trees bring their own guitar elegance and theatricality to a fantastic version of "Corruption." Dramatic highlights include a flat-out amazing take on "Belle Epoque" by Chandeen that through additional female vocals and keyboards somehow makes the Duality lead-off even more momentous. In a nice twist, the band themselves contribute a track, but it's not a remix — instead, it's a seemingly conservative cover choice, if only because Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" has been covered by so many people over the years. To their credit, though, the brothers Humberstone find a new, stellar beauty in it, their dramatic, string- and wind-led arrangement miles away from the original but keeping the same central pace and melody. Hearing them sing the familiar lyrics in a deceptively calm but still affecting way as everything gets more lusher is a fine blend of past and present, an honoring of roots from where the band are now rather than where they were then.