### Luddite Clone: The arsonist and the architect

#### 26/04/10 || Daemonomania

They’re cloning Luddites? Oh shit, hide your mechanized looms! Actually, it seems like a bit of a contradiction to use newfangled biological expertise to make genetic copies of technophobes. Maybe Luddite Clone is being clever with their moniker. We all know cleverness is just one step closer to growing an irony beard. And subsequent execution by Redcoat firing squad.

These dudes sound a lot like As the Sun Sets mixed with a bit of Coalesce here and there mixed with a bit of Bird of Ill Omen – in other words they sound like Converge. At some point, maybe about a decade ago, it was OK to simply ride Converge’s tattooed dick. Maybe whilst spouting a new idea or two. These days ze early incarnation of metalcore has largely bit the dust. Unsurprisingly so has Luddite Clone, though several members went on to form KISS THE CYNIC (cleverness alert – cynics hate being kissed). Who have been inactive since 2007. I wonder which bands they sounded like…

Being that this fucken “Chicken and the egg” album is over in under 20 minutes, rewriting the Aeneid with a Luddite clone filling in as the main character doesn’t make much sense. But it would be interesting. Screeching, drumming, and samples are good. Interesting jazzy bit in “The contortionist”. None of it good enough to surpass their idols, however. Goodbye arsonists, architects, and for the most part goodbye Converge-core. It would take a clever person, or perhaps a hater of the Industrial Revolution, to figure out why only the originators are left to represent this style.

- Information
- Released: 2000
- Label: Relapse
- Website: Luddite Clone MySpace
- Band
- Andrew Cummings: vocals
- Andrew Shearer: guitars
- Ian Berkowitz: guitars
- Kevin Hannum: bass
- Bob Raf: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Bottom King
- 02. Circle Template
- 03. Oratory of the Jigsaw
- 04. Arthropod
- 05. The Contortionist
- 06. The Arsonist and the Architect