If you plan to buy this album, please don't buy the version distributed by Thirsty Ear/Some Bizarre Records. The company has never paid the band for its recordings, and NONE of your purchase price will go to the makers of this exceptional music.

Another version is available through Indigo Records, and the group does get paid for those copies.

This is without any doubt my favorite industrial album. Every single composition is perfect and together they make nightmarish symphony. Screams of tortured souls, humming of grotesque machinery, eerie sound samples are elements which give this album a kind of disturbed, twisted beauty. Yes, this album is beautiful, but only if you open your mind and let your brain concentrate on music vibration. This album is not for everyone and it requires intense listening to be appreciated. But this album is a true gift for every serious music lover.

This is my favorite of their older albums. The dark energy that saturates Drawings of Patient O.T. feels very cleansing. It ranges from the near-punk (but not) title track to dirty, gritty metallic noise to very dark & spare songs with buzz-saws droning in & out among the instrumentation. Essential music. If you're ever feeling pent up, it'll smash your world back into order. Or, if over-orderliness is the problem, you can regard this music as very satisfying in its chaos.

This was the first E.N. record that I ever heard. It remains among my favorite work by them. While their later releases represent more "accessible" or refined industrial music, the earlier works are rife with passion and energy. It's helpful to know at least a little German, but you can certainly get the gist of this band from their textures (and perhaps volume!).

With repeated listenings, the structure of the songs becomes more apparent. It's much more than a bunch of angst-ridden kids banging on dustbin lids. There are familiar song elements here, along with found/invented music instruments. If you ever have the opportunity, see them perform live. The band is sometimes a sonic assault, and sometimes surprisingly quiet... You may be surprised to see how musical a ball-peen hammer can be. As the book title suggests, listen with pain.

summary:

a groundbreaking masterpiece, helping to evolve industrial into something more rythmic, more accessable, while retaining its integrity. it loses a star because it is quite old (20yrs!) and so recorded quite bad, and btw: totally sung in german. i would have loved to hear these songs redone with modern technology and with the aim of creating an epic. (?).

detail:

*sigh*

5. slower, sinister. driven by german vocals, something that sounds like a machine at work; a throbbing alien probe? punctuated by drum beats.

*u-hum*

9. a reprieve? minimal music to a vocal recant. a lovely opening: the sound of grinding teeth!

*shew*