Apraxia is a synthpop band from Minneapolis, MN., previously in Detroit MI., the brainchild of Alex Valoczki, with a little help from Brooke Aldridge (vocals), Stuart Teigen (spoken vocals), Luna Love (guitar on one track), and Laura Hillman Mitchell (backing vocals on 'Strangelove'). Yep, that's right, 'Strangelove,' the Depeche Mode song, but we'll get to that later.

I can't figure out if Alex is just enamoured of 80's synthpop, or an early Depeche Mode wannabe. He says that people tell him he has a voice just like David Gahan; I think he sounds more like Phil Oakley in Human League's earliest incarnation. Yes, this is that era synthpop, and mostly minimal synthpop at that. (Even Human League's 'Travelogue' was more adventurous.) Things begin well enough with 'Stop,' the first track; it's got a good beat and retro-synths, and a bit of a catchy chorus.

I detected a hint of Freezepop on 'Delicious Vixen,' an okay song about your local club divas. And there's some nifty vocoder on 'DNA NanoBots'. However, in order to make this material work, it has to be much more clever with some wry humor which doesn't seem to be Alex's strong suit. 'Fight!' wants to make a political statement but comes off weak and merely sarcastic in spite of additional sampled dialogue and power guitar chords. No synthpop should ever cover the Stooges classic 'I Wanna Be Your Dog,' which, even with guitar doesn't cut the mustard. In fact, I don't think any artist should ever cover it, except for maybe Susan Boyle. Now THAT I'd like to hear! 'International Space Elevator' is a good track for people who like vocoders and minimal synth. 'Rabbits' really reminds me of early Human League, but not in a good way. I now remember why I don't play their albums anymore.

More cynical social commentary on 'Suck It Up,' albeit without the humor required to carry it off. There are plenty of bleeps and blurbles on this album for those who can't get enough analogue synth, but for me that's just not enough.

For bonus tracks there are remixes and extended versions of four tracks you've already heard on the album. AND- Apraxia' version of DM's 'Strangelove' produced by remixer Junior Kain. Kind of Depeche Mode light. I can't see any good reason for doing yet another version of this song. For one thing, the song has been remixed to death as is. You can find about a hundred versions of it on the net. As to Apraxia's treatment of it, if you just heard it blind, you might find yourself asking, 'Oh is that an unreleased Depeche Mode demo?' Yeah, there's a bit of a similarity vocally, and I wouldn't be surprised if this song got a little club play locally. Musically, it's serviceable.

Overall, I'm not completely sold on Apraxia's 'The Grid'. The term Apraxia is defined: '1. A disorder of voluntary movement consisting of the partial or complete inability to execute purposeful movements without the impairment of muscular power and coordination. 2. A psychomotor defect characterized by the inability to make proper use of a known object.' For now, I think the name is pretty fitting.

This is the first "real" full-length by this one-man act leaded by Jason Hollis, if we don’t count the split-release with CAUSTIC to the discography, and I can still remember hearing about this act 3 – 4 years ago coming up through the Thirdwave Collective, which is still active (www.thirdwave-collective.com). A track like "Ashes" caught really my attention and got released on a collective compilation. That it took some more years until this act could leave its hidden status wondered me a bit. So here we have this full-length release out on Crunch Pod Media – and I’ve seldom heard this year anything comparable intense like this one! This isn’t the straight and monotonous beating Powernoise someone may expects, it goes deeper and shows a lot of depth, details and facets. There’s a real intelligent kind behind this 13 tracks, which take influences out of Electro/Industrial, Powernoise (of course...), IDM and Electro-Clash. This is somehow that kind of music where INDIVIDUAL TOTEM at their heydays ("SETI"-era...) have stopped and wouldn’t mind to integrate the "noise" component in their music. Hard electronics filled with real authentic ideas, can you remember to which other release you’ve been said this for a while? "Ashes" is included, but also "Sleeper Cell" which took place on the quadruple Alfa Matrix compilation Endzeit Bunkertracks 2. All relevant older tracks of this act got revamped into this new style, and nothing’s gonna disturb the float of this album. Some well-done co-operations with some different musicians are featured as well, J. Conley aka SAEMSKIN, an act I also lately discovered has laid his hands on "Blotter", one of the outstanding pieces here by combining noise aggression with a constant good but dark melodic content. "Gritscape" is one of the few harsh and fast-forward beating tracks and got manipulated by Mort Rigdon of POLLUTED AXIS. "Totenplatz", a more Dark Electro-oriented track which also has found a free slot on BLC’s Interbreeding VII compilation features lyrics and guest vocals in German by Siren313 of APRAXIA. If you have only a small sense of dedication to hard but still diverse pounding Electro/Industrial/Powernoise music provided with intelligent arrangements and structures, you’ll need to purchase this one. I tend to call this a milestone. Doubleplusgood!!!

The cover artwork of this cd makes me think of an experimental kind of music but in actual fact this record is an electro work.
The most impressive songs are "Totenplatz", "Strangelove" (a Depeche Mode cover) and "Metrosexual". Sounds are nice and well chosen, the singer has got a good voice. The record would have been better with a more appropriate artwork, however it can be appreciated by people who prefer introspective electronic music instead of ebm. Quite good.