Critic's Review
Patrick Kennedy, All Music Guide
Though this album proved a puzzling, ultimately challenging release, if nothing else, it presaged the shape of things to come in extreme music. Supernova straddles numerous music fences at one time, and indicates that metal could indeed be far more than a simple, formulaic system of chugging riffs, screamed vocals, and stampeding drums. In fact, the greatest feat of this album is its near-soundtrack aesthetic quality, making sudden left turns, detours, stylistic and volume changes at any given moment, then merging seamlessly with the next track, or cleverly conceived loop. Though its hallmarks are Steve Austin's painful Robert Fripp/Greg Ginn jazz-metal guitar playing, and frightening vocal wail -- as evidenced in "6 Dementia Satyr" and "Black Dahlia" -- it are the experimental, complex soundscapes like "Blind Man at Mystic Lake" and "The Begging" that truly set this album apart. Very few outfits are capable of such detailed, inescapably mathematical, acid-damaged music. Supernova is a landmark recording.
