Treponem Pal (named after Treponema pallidum, the bacteria that causes syphilis) is a French industrial metal band formed in 1986. In the late 80s the band had a deal with Roadrunner Records which resulted into a bunch of Industrial/Metal releases with (according to their own bio) 'industrial groove breaking meets electronic hacking and hardcore, metal and tribal banging. That's quite a niche, I would say.

It's quite hard to describe the band's sound. Most of the tracks consist of midtempo riffs in an almost Rammstein-way, spiced up with synth samples and general weird noises (which probably covers the industrial part). One could also describe it as a less pissed-off French version of Ministry. Most songs tend to be generally heavy ('Unclean', 'Planet Crash'), while tracks like 'Hardcore Massive Soldier' have a good, catchy sing along chorus.

The band should also focus more on Neves pretty good clean vocals. His angry stuff makes him sound like a French bread salesman who is pissed off because he got a wrong amount of change and yells after a customer. Tracks like 'Sonic Life' and 'One More Time' stick out like a positive sore thumb because of the clean vocals and the added melodies. Sad part about this release is that Prong-master Paul Raven (who played bass on this disc) passed away during its recording process.

This disc has been a mixed bag for me. Some of the riffs and vocals worked out great, while during other tracks they tended to be borderline unoriginal. You might want to check it out or you have a soft spot for French rockbands and the industrial-rock genre.