In the early 1970s Alan Vega cofounded Suicide, chanting and testifying fearfully over Martin Rev's pulsing, undead electronics. Time has upped the ante for what synths have to do to be scary, but Vega's new partners, Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen of the Finnish group Pan Sonic (formerly Panasonic), have the cold winds of death trapped in their little black boxes. Vega's voice, treated with savage slap-back echo, intones dark, fragmentary phrases about war, desire, banality, and meaninglessness--the effect is a little like Elvis singing Samuel Beckett--while his partners' electronics gurgle, buzz, and cough up silicon blood, sidling away from recognizable notes and reliable beats. Endless's hour of unremitting bleakness can get numbing, but in small doses it's a bracing chill. --Douglas Wolk
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