I have to get to the point and tell all SP fans who don't have Last Rights, head out and get this magnificent cd. It is, arguably, their best from beginning to end. The band hold no punches whatsoever in this round. Much can be said about the cd's extreme darkness and the like. However, I'm just going to say that it isn't just really dark, it really rocks. It is probably their loudest cd to boot.

Nivek, Cevin, and Dwayne, have never been tighter in their respected positions in the band. All the instruments, voices, lyrics, hit their pinnacle here. They manage to come up with well-formed, adrenaline-noise (Knowhere, Scrapyard) and well-focused, emotional torment (Mirror Saw, Inquisition) for starters. Download is just one great demonic tape loop that has to be heard to be believed.

They really kick ass in tracks like Love In Vein, Riverz End, and Circustance. These are among my favorites from the band's entire catalogue. Plenty of things are going on in these cuts.

Real darkness comes through in their music and more so in this cd than many others in their career. I still get chills from listening to it over and over again.

Killing Game is my personal fave here, a haunting, melodic piece of tormentation. It's sooo introspective and menacing that once the song ends it will leave the listener dazed and uncomfortable. Yet it's sooo worth hearing. It is also just as relevant today as it was more than 13 years ago. This cd alone will kick ass against much of the "hardcore" music that's out today.

When I discovered Too Dark Park I new that I had a masterpiece. I was doubtful that Skinny Puppy could ever come up with a cd that was even close to the Park. I read the reviews and decided to make this my third puppy cd. I was blown away by how great it is. I actually think that it may be on equal ground with Too Dark Park. For now I will just call it their second best. The big difference is that Last Rights is significantly darker. Maybe the Darkest Industrial cd that I own.

Love In Vein 9 This one creeps up on you with sinister synths and deranged incoherent mumbling.Ogre's vocals start with a low malicious whisper. Then beats, noises, samples, and plenty of shouting and screaming take over.

Killing Game 8.5 This song has a very depressing and gloomy atmosphere. Softer than all the other songs on the cd. Lots of organ and piano keys.

Knowhere? 10 Holy $h!t! Absolute devastating sonic carnage. When I first listened to it it gave me a migraine. It is a very complex sculpture of noise. On first listen you don't really grasp the structure of it. With some open minded patience it unravels and draws you into a realm of nightmares and pain.

Mirror Saw 20/10 So far my favorite Skinny Puppy song that I have heard. I could listen to it forever. I actually have listened to it on repeat for a whole day. I never get tired of it. Their is a brief part in particular that ensnared me. It is a depressing melody that first appears in the background behind the noise about a minute and a half into the song. Than at 2:36 it starts again. It is a simple yet beautifully depressing melody. The whole song before it gradually builds up to this point. The whole of the song is like sex, and this melody is the climax. By the time the song is ending it explodes in a crescendo of sorrow and emotion.

Inquisition 10 A awesome song that puts to shame most of today's industrial music. Very good chorus. The lyrics are great too. This song has a very good balance of beats, noise, and melody.

Scrapyard 7 The name says it all. Opens with some noise, and than their is this brief acoustic melody. Than out of nowhere the noise comes and crashes down all around you. As far as the noisier songs are concerned I think that Knowhere? blows this one away this still is a very solid song, but not my favorite here.

Riverz End 9.5 Very haunting synths give this the atmosphere of a gothic cathedral. There are several parts of this song that have a really catchy noise. I don't know what they used to make this noise but I wish I did. Imagine early Delerium( Euphoric EP) mixed with Einsturzende Neubauten. Its my second favorite skinny puppy instrumental after Stair's and Flowers.

Lust Chance 8.5 Very good beats. This song has a fragmented feal. It is full of beats, abrasive noise, and melodies. There are some good samples that sound like they were taken from a porn film.

Circustance 9.5 I love this one. The melody at first has this cosmic atmosphere. Than it descends into a nightmarish circus freakshow. Ogre sounds more possessed than usual.

Download 10 Musical version of a haunted scrapyard. Its like all the nightmares you ever had morphed into noise, and crammed onto this 11 minute ride to hell. Most will hate this track. It is only meant for those who are deranged beyond repair.

I don't see how anybody can be a Skinny Puppy fan, or even a industrial fan without having this cd.

I bought Last Rights after buying Too Dark Park; as I really love the latter, and many fans often consider these 2 to be the best Skinny albums, I first listened to Last Rights with anxiety. But I got disillusioned; The dark atmosphere created in TDP is absent here; Last Rights is not a bad album, but I think it lacks the changing beats of VIVISectVI and the darkness of TDP; there're good tracks though, 'Killing Game' is excellent and so is 'Inquisition'; but the work ends in a very irregular way, with instrumental tracks full of samples which are not bad in themselves, but stmes get too repetitive and tiring. I think that VIVISectVI and Too Dark Park are superior to Last Rights, better conceived and less irregular; However, the personal touch of Skinny Puppy is here, so Last Rights grows on you with each listening, but I think it will never beat these 2 previous albums. It anticipates somehow Download's works, mainly with the treatment of samples and instrumental atmospheres;

This is Skinny Puppy at their finest. It's also the singer Ogre's most personal album lyrically. Songs like Love In Vein and Mirror Saw are about as Skinny Puppy as it gets. This is the album a lot of fans say Skinny Puppy peaked on. I'm inclined to agree, even though I still do really like the later albums.

For me the highlights are Love In Vein, Killing Game, and Mirror Saw. Some of the non-vocal songs like Scrapyard and Riverz End are cool too. Seriously though if your looking to get into Skinny Puppy this is one of their best, both lyrically and musically.

"Last Rights" is the heart-shattering, chaotic, utterly deranged chronicle of singer Nivek Ogre's absolute breaking point... the time in his life where he was shooting up with cocaine 30 times a day, and there was simply no hope and nowhere to go but death. According to everything I've read, the expectation of disaster was in the air. Even his band members thought he was completely lost.

I'm a firm believer in the effects of beliefs and expectations. If someone believes they are God and makes an album, it will sound like God, or at the very least like it is not of this Earth. If someone believes they are dying and writes an album, it doesn't matter if they actually end up dead... the expectation they had will produce something nightmarish. And so, this is such an album, despite the fact that Ogre recovered and is alive and well.

There are moments in this album where the noise clears and you see a sky torn open, revealing whatever is beyond that threshold at the end of life. These things were bleeding into Ogre's life, and here they are visible to everyone who will never experience a low so low.

There's a lot of stuff on this album that doesn't really make musical sense... seemingly random splicing, screaming and sampling. The barely controlled chaos of Skinny Puppy's past sound collage expands beyond the bounds of coherency. Although there are some absolutely beautiful washes of synth melody as well, this album is ultimately an expression of pure entropy.

For those who can learn to understand it, it's the one of the most emotional experiences you can get on an album. My only regret is that the brilliant intended climax "Left Handshake" is not included (even though the otherworldly "Circustance" makes an amazing ending on its own). Buy this, and then hunt down "Left Handshake" as well the b-side "Lahuman8".