Argyle Park
Also credited as AP2
New York City, New York11 reviews across 2 releases
Argyle Park was a New York City industrial project formed in 1994 around the R.E.X. scene, with a deliberately unstable boundary between band and studio collaboration. Its first album, Misguided, moved from frenzied thrash and drum-machine attack into techno and dance music, with ambient passages and soundtrack-like interludes appearing along the way; one review compared the experience to a heavy rave followed by Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. The lyrics concerned personal pain and mistreatment, while leaving faith damaged rather than offering straightforward evangelism, which made the group awkwardly placed within Christian music. The record's defining oddity was its refusal to settle: guitars could give way to electronics, distorted voices or spoken-word passages, while guest vocalists changed the character of individual songs. By 2000, Suspension of Disbelief had made the electronic side more central, using repeated piano and trance textures before breaking into breakbeats or industrial metal.
After R.E.X. Music failed, Argyle Park shut down in 1996 amid label problems and criticism of its bleak, non-evangelical lyrics. The project returned by 1999 as AP2, with Buka joined by Level; Klayton produced Suspension of Disbelief and contributed two songs rather than serving as the principal writer. Tooth & Nail Records issued the album in 2000, but the planned continuation ended later that year after low sales and renewed disputes over the project's place in Christian music. Klayton later developed Circle of Dust material and the Celldweller project, while Buka and Level pursued separate work.
2 releases reviewed
Suspension of Disbelief