The band, … Read Full Bio ↴XP8 was formed by Marco Visconti and Marko Resurreccion.
The band, started in 2001 as a trio including previous singer Paul Toohill and based in Rome, Italy , composes an airy blend of EBM, electronica, techno and trance, bringing their various visions and talents to life with synthetic vibrancy and danceable beats, crossing electronic genres with relative ease.
Aimed at the heart of the dancefloor, the music keeps listeners moving through the night in timeless waves, emitting subtle hints of the 1980s while slipping easily into sounds of the new millennium: glitchy patterns, sharp simulated strings, and clear vocals travel through bright sequences and brooding atmospheres.
After having released their first demo, Forgive, on the now defunct mp3.com website, and receiving good feedbacks, they signed a deal with the Polish label Black Flames Records, who would reissue the demo on May 2004 as Forgive[n], quickly followed by the RE_Productions EP in October 2004.
In several interviews though, the band seemed to consider their real debut the 2005 album Hrs:Min:Sec, released on the acclaimed German label Infacted Recordings.
Over the years, XP8 made a name for themselves due to their energetic live performances: the band played all over Europe, from their native Italy to Russia, and attended prestigious festivals like Wave Gotik Treffen, Blackfield and NCN Festival in Germany, VP Live in Belgium, K.O.M.A. in Norway and Kinetik and Terminus in Canada. Also their remix work is much sought-after, and bands as different as Attrition, Mortiis, Icon Of Coil, Dope Stars Inc., Steve Aoki, Wayne G, Soman (among the others) has been remixed by XP8.
The band's third studio album, The Art Of Revenge, was released on January 18th 2008 once again on Infacted Recordings, immediately receiving good reviews and top ten placements in the most famous alternative charts.
Summer 2008 saw XP8 undertaking their first US tour with System Syn where they were enthusiastically greeted by rabid fans from New York to Los Angeles and everywhere between. The accompanying promo video for The Art of Revenge has also seen heavy rotation in several Italian music TV channels and even reached the 1 position in Music Box's top 20 in October 2008.
Pushing forward even harder in 2009, XP8 worked extensively on the eagerly anticipated new album, titled Drop The Mask: demos of the new album found their way to Metropolis Records who signed them for North America.
Drop The Mask is a further evolution of the band’s sound by showing the duo of Marco Visconti and Marko Resurreccion taking their collective music prowess to new heights.
The album was introduced by the single Want It, a groovy and sexy electro-industrial tune who also features the guest vocals of Daniel Graves of Aesthetic Perfection fame, who lends XP8 his mighty screaming which turns the song into a pure dancefloor smasher, and was released also as a deluxe digipack limited edtion in Japan by Deathwatch Asia, featuring exclusive remixes and new songs.
2011: now ten years old, the Italian duo sign off their first decade by delivering what both fans and DJs have long demanded: a no-frills return to the classic XP8-style futurepop epitomised by the 2008 album The Art Of Revenge.
Yet this was no step back: rather, but a very deliberate and superbly-crafted return to familiar musical territory.
Where Drop The Mask pulled in different directions, X: A Decade Of Decadence exhibits a singularity of purpose: to drive the listener onto the dancefloor.
This is futurepop at its finest, surely the catchiest and most accessible work XP8 has produced to date. And as if to underline these new-found commercial credentials, X also finds XP8 reunited with Stewart Who?, the instantly-recognisable voice of Wayne G s platinum-selling club-classic Twisted, for the killer cut Trip, following on from his live collaboration on XP8’s Twisted cover which was one of the highlights of the Resistanz Festival, earlier the sane year.
A decade of Decadence just ended, another is about to start: and it did with the release of Burning Down, a remix EP focused on the same-titled song, which was also chosen by the band for their third official video, and which became already a true classic of the whole genre.
With hits like The Art Of Revenge, Muv Your Dolly, Cuttin'n'Drinkin and Burning Down under their belts, XP8 entered the 2010s by re-affirming once again their constant search to evolve their own sound, incorporating elements from every electronic dance styles, culminating in Adrenochrome, the best and most mature band's effort to date.
Making the bold move of getting rid of every label support and going fully independent, the band was able to set up a crowd funding event which was successful a mere 18th hours after its start. Defying the current trends that see bands and musicians releasing singles, XP8 went once again back to their own roots and planned Adrenochrome as a real concept album, with a full story behind it, where the music becomes soundtrack to the tales told.
Everything came to a grinding halt in 2014 when the band decided to disband, quoting various reasons for this decision, among them the dwindling interest in alternative/industrial dance music, a trend that had a long run for almost two decades but that eventually ran dry. In an interview, Visconti also stated that “[...] no one wants to be the old guy in a room full of kids looking at you like a dinosaur: I remember vividly making fun of those old goths that simply didn’t want to get the fuck out of MY clubs a decade ago, and the last thing I wanted to become was one of them.” [8] - clearly pointing out the necessity to make space for a younger generation to make things vital and vibrant once again.
Before disbanding, XP8 released a series of 3 EPs over a period of 9 months, each released tied to one of the phases of the Alchemical process: the three releases went on to be praised as the band's best material by critics and fans alike, proving how the Italian duo left a mark on the industrial scene for years and years to come. Steven Gullotta at Brutal Resonance stated that "XP8 may be dead, but their music will forever hold a place within my soul" [9], giving the band a good send off.
Lies
XP8 Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
You smash us sore and we crush our souls
You pierce our flesh and yet we curse ourselves
You torture us to tears
But it's our thoughts we fear
Twist that spike into my arm
Then pour your rage onto my heart
Kill the oblivious part of me, show me all the hate you feel
Your heart so full of shit and lies
You're poisoning our minds
With all your vicious lies
You're poisoning our minds...
We used to have a past
But it got lost in noise
Our future cannot last
Cos you have drowned our voice
Sensorial deprivation
A culture trapped in lies
Our penance's well deserved
Cos we all decided
To close our eyes!
You're poisoning our minds
With all your vicious lies
You're poisoning our minds...
I try to overcome my fear
But nothing anymore is real
If the truths i need are lies
How can I hold on to life?
In the song "Lies" by XP8, the lyrics describe a sense of oppression and manipulation. The first verse sets the tone for the rest of the song, as it describes an experience of being physically and emotionally hurt, while somehow blaming oneself for these experiences. The lines "You pierce our flesh and yet we curse ourselves / You torture us to tears / But it's our thoughts we fear" speak to the idea that the person being hurt is internalizing these experiences and feeling responsible for them in some way. The chorus, "You're poisoning our minds / With all your vicious lies" further emphasizes this, suggesting that the person inflicting harm is doing so through deception and manipulation.
The second verse goes on to describe how the person being hurt used to have a voice, but it has been drowned out by the lies of the oppressor. The line "Our future cannot last / Cos you have drowned our voice" speaks to a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness, as if the person being hurt has no control over their own fate. The line "A culture trapped in lies" suggests that this is not just an individual experience, but something that affects an entire community. The sense of guilt and responsibility again shows up in the line "Cos we all decided / To close our eyes!" as if the people being hurt somehow brought this on themselves.
Line by Line Meaning
You lift your whip to kill our will
You are using your authority and power to crush our desires and aspirations.
You smash us sore and we crush our souls
You keep hurting us until we are completely broken and lose all sense of purpose.
You pierce our flesh and yet we curse ourselves
You inflict physical pain on us, but the psychological distress we feel is self-imposed.
You torture us to tears
You subject us to extreme suffering that makes us cry uncontrollably.
But it's our thoughts we fear
We are most afraid of our own ideas because they contradict with what you want us to believe.
Twist that spike into my arm
Go ahead and hurt me with your weapons.
Then pour your rage onto my heart
Show me all the anger you feel and let it consume my emotions.
Kill the oblivious part of me, show me all the hate you feel
Destroy the part of me that is numb to your cruelty, and make me feel the full extent of your hatred.
Only you into your eyes
Your perspective is narrow and you only see the world through your own biased lens.
Your heart so full of shit and lies
You are deceitful and dishonest in the way you behave and interact with others.
You're poisoning our minds
You are slowly but surely corrupting our thought processes.
With all your vicious lies
You are using falsehoods to manipulate and control us.
We used to have a past
At one point, we had a history of our own.
But it got lost in noise
Our individual uniqueness and voices have been drowned out by your overpowering presence and influence.
Our future cannot last
There is no hope for our future as long as you continue to dominate us and suppress our potential.
Cos you have drowned our voice
You have successfully silenced us and made it impossible for us to express ourselves.
Sensorial deprivation
Our senses are being robbed from us.
A culture trapped in lies
The society we live in is ensnared in falsehoods and misconceptions.
Our penance's well deserved
We are being punished justly for allowing ourselves to be oppressed for so long.
Cos we all decided
We have consciously chosen to let you have power over us.
To close our eyes!
We have decided to turn a blind eye to the reality we are facing.
I try to overcome my fear
I am attempting to be brave and not let my fear control me.
But nothing anymore is real
Nothing seems authentic or true to me anymore.
If the truths I need are lies
If the things I believe to be true turn out to be false,
How can I hold on to life?
How can I continue to exist, when the foundation for my beliefs has crumbled?
Contributed by Leah H. Suggest a correction in the comments below.