Infusion: Girls Can Be Cruel
Audio Therapy

Infusion: Do To You (In '82)
Audio Therapy

With Girls Can Be Cruel, Australia's Infusion (Frank Xavier, Manuel Sharrad, and Jamie Stevens) offers an enticing foretaste of its upcoming album Six Feet Above Yesterday. The 12” includes two versions of the song, the first an electropop-progressive house treatment and the second a straight-up club mix. The pop version opens with chunky T Rex guitar chords draped over a slamming groove that's frankly more New Wave than techno or house. A robotic vocal hook (“Just one sip of your behavior / And my senses tell me danger”) digs beneath your skin amidst grimy synth whirrs and industrial noises. On the flip, galloping tech-house beats in the stomper “Girls Can Be Cruel (Infusion SQ'ed Mix)” morph into chugging machine rhythms that, goosed by synth snarls, sound even grungier.

Strong too though not as compositionally sophisticated as “Girls Can Be Cruel,” the '80s electro-techno “Do To You (In '82)” alternates synth and guitar stabs over relentless beats while a breathless chorus intones the monotone hook: “If I could do to you / The things I wanted to do to you / Would you still want me to?” While the song itself is fine, the 12” impresses less for excluding a B-side; wasn't an alternate mix (or equivalent) available? Regardless, both discs bode well for the full-length's quality.

October 2004