From Aural Pressure:

Note: Jo was worried about this review. Even I was slightly concerned. Maybe I had gone too far this time. So I did the unthinkable. I contacted Michael Page and showed him the review. He then had a choice. Go with it or ask for my serious back-up one to be used instead. Thankfully he has a sense of humour. He hasn’t a problem with it. Please remember this before you think about complaining about the content.

An imagined and total fabrication of a day in the life of Michael Page:

0850hrs. Woke up. Smelt the coffee. Nice. Got a day off work so think I’ll record a new album. Can’t remember how many that is so far. I’ll count them all one day. Better have some breakfast first. A bacon bagel. Mmnnn. Tasty.

0925hrs. Fed and feeling good. Go down to basement which I’ve converted to a recording studio. Check equipment. Modulators. Ok. Oscillators. Working fine. Disruptors. Ditto. Amplifiers buzzing. Electronic gizmos and circuit boards. Ready. Microphones. Have three to use. Might plug in another. Computer looking sexy. Time to boot into Windows.

0950hrs. At last. Billy Gates has a lot to answer for. Open up my
favourite music making program. Hit some switches and press ‘record.’ Makes a squealing sound. Will keep that. Thump the gizmo. Great horrible noise. Like it. Keep flicking switches and moving all manner of slides and dials. Heck this is impressive stuff. How could things so small sound so loud. Dunno but it appeals to me. I’ll limber up and do some vocal exercises.

1036hrs. Finished with my scales. Now got to lay the vocals down. Growl menacingly into the microphone. Sounds like phlegm stuck in there. Couldn’t wish for a better effect. Make up words as I go along. Sometimes even I scare myself at the thoughts that I pour out. Makes me sound like an evil bastard.

1106hrs. Record more music. Add more depth to the noise. Which is pretty awesome as it stands. My ears start hurting. A good sign. Means I’m doing something right. Throw my amps up to eleven. Can’t get higher than that. Soon be finished.

1156hrs. Play around with my music making program. Move bits here and there. Nearly done. Extreme music should be my middle name. Might change it by deed poll. Fuck me if I’m not good.

1209hrs. Done and dusted. Sounds great. Very heavy and quite strident. Lots of disorientating noise which is what my fans demand. Yeah…all told I’m happy with this one. Just need a title and some artwork.

1249hrs. ‘Come Closer Cut Deeper’ seems good. Rolls off the tongue. The pictures I found on the Internet to accompany it are not for the squeamish or faint hearted but it sells it pretty well. Cut flesh. Even I’m going all woozy looking at it. Will make some copies and send them out for review. Sit back and smile at a job well done. Will sleep for the rest of the afternoon.

Two weeks later:

1113hrs. Just seen the review in AP. The reviewer called it ‘an exemplary display of extreme / power noise terrorising with the nine tracks reinforcing my belief that Michael Page is an artist of unique worth whose work will never be compromised’. Read some other shit in the review but liked that bit best. Makes my day to be appreciated. Might just go and make myself another recording.

NB…Ok…I’m well over the top there. The music making process is long and torturous and can be soul destroying when it just won’t gel. Michael Page knows this better than anyone. Noise fanatics are well catered for with every release he sees fit to put out. Aggressive and raucous with just the right balance to keep them from being a complete overblown mess. Other should take note of his practices. Long may he continue in this vein. The ego has been stroked and massaged.

From Semtex Magazine:

Fire In The Head stands for brutal power electronics, it's been less than two months since I reviewed his previous cd "be my enemy" somewhere else here. With the coversleeve showing a sliced opened throat and all in all everything packaged in brutal imagery. I am pleased to get myself down into the dark noise of Fire In The Head.

Opening up a scene of violence with "what you can do", you get straightly pushed down in a bath of green harsh rumbling noise, with the vocals of Michael Page sounding psychotic, spitting out his lyrics inbetween walls of harsh noise. With "lie to me" we get slowly taken away to a more ambientesque feeled and industrialized emptified landscape with huge planes flying over, feels like some futuristic soundtrack for what gives me pretty much a dark and pessimistic feel of an empty destroyed world.Blackened and burnt.

Although I wished I could keep getting lost in his darkened landscapes, it takes about four minutes til I'm getting rudely awakened by "across your face" with feedback manupilations, microphone abuse, contact mics and his vocals. Harsh violent , sick and disturbing.

Following in line is "the art of obliteration" where it really gets
interesting with Fire In The Head's his experimentings on feedback
manipulations and layers of rumbling and crackling noise. One of my
favorite tracks on here is definitely "malfunction" which features lyrics from the almighty Cro Mags, mangled inbetween violent and painful nailbiting powerlectronics. I love it when people combine hardcore/punk with noise. Fire In The Head keeps on cranking up my head through "the last thing you'll see" that has more of a dark ambient direction, with some apocalyptic bursts and breakdowns inbetween the most instrumental feeled composition on here.

With "come closer cut deeper" you get nine dark violent feeled
compositions, that range from harsh powerelectronics to pretty dark and twisted ambient feeled directioned compositions. Fire In The Head drags you through his landscapes and manifestos of sick minded violence, with bloody bursts of harsh noise. I'm totally into this, and it's amongst the cd's I can listen to without stopping. Beautifully released in a jewelcase on Nihilist Records. Fire In The Head appeals to anyone into Sickness, Slogun, Freak Animal Records, Facialmess and Japanese harsh noise.

Keep an eye out for Fire In The Head as he will be getting on tour through Europe around May 2006 together with Burn Ward. Be sure to check it out. Consider me totally down with Fire In The Head.

[Ray Kluze]

From radiumclub.net:

Outfitted with a warm and family friendly cover and released through the US-based Nihilist Records, Fire in the Head's Come Closer Cut Deeper is the artist's new offering to friends of heavy noise. Some parts of CCCD are reworks of material from FITH's earlier demos, and as a pleasant surprise the disc also contains a new version of the stylish Written Across Your Face (now titled only Across Your Face) originally released on the artist's self-titled CDr. Make no mistake, despite some familiarity this is not a disc of recycled crud, because there's a wealth of stuff hear not heard before, and even the familiar pieces have put on an entirely new face.

FITH's grip is still as firm as ever, making Come Closer Cut Deeper's
music as loud and lyrics as cold and determined as his other works,
although compared to the magnificent Be My Enemy, CCCD's more direct, harsh noise-like approach is closer to Mr. Page's earlier releases. Nothing wrong with variation of course, releasing material that sounds exactly the same would definitely be a worse approach.

Even though the sounds used in the tracks are very similar to
each other throughout the album, the compositions themselves are wildly different in style, execution and general feeling. For example, Across Your Face offers shrieking high-pitch sounds while What You Can Never Do and The Art of Obliteration draw their power from a steady, beefy bass making them feelmore immediate. As a good demonstration of the artist's versatility, The Last Thing You'll See combines piercing distortion with a choir-like background, which makes the track sound rather melancholy despite its loudness.

CCCD contains no weak tracks, but as a whole it doesn't quite reach the level of Be My Enemy. This should not come as a surprise though, since the latter was in all ways so good that it'll be a challenge even for Mr. Page himself to top. FITH's style is becoming more personal release by release, and with such a combination of originality and quality I can't but give CCCD a thumbs up too.

From *poisonfree.com.

Michael Page's musical output is impressive. Only few months ago "Be my Enemy" blasted through my speakers when "Come closer, cut deeper" marks the next step in FITH's musical career. Just as "Be my enemy" "Come closer..." sports harsh electronic eruptions, spherical passages and blood drenched vocals. Though the styles blend in perfectly "Come closer..." appears to be a little more on the harsh side then "Be my enemy". Interestingly this album gives the opportunity to check out what "Malfunction" of the Cro Mags may sound like in the PE-way.productionwise it is still totally hi-fi. Transparent, with maximum pressure and really brutal. If you are into PE you should already be familiar with FITH's work and know of it's class. Recommended album, go contact Nihilist-Records asap!

-Stephan

From Absolute Zero Media.

I don't know how to express myself more for Fire in the head then I have in the last couple of reviews I've done. I wish he would return the interview I sent him. Fire in the head is the 21st verison of what Slogun, Bastard Noise or Merzbow did in the early and mid 90's: Mind altering, Sonically Nightmarish Power Electronics meets Death Industrial. This is what all bands have to compare themselves to. I really feel only Sickness, Emil, Prurient and I:G even stand in the same light as Fire in the Head. This is just another piece of the puzzle I look forward to every release more and more . Now I'm done till the next masterpiece arrives.

From Nihilist Records:

This is a ripping experience, like being chewed in a turbine at 24 RPMS in pitch black! At the same time, it sustains a subliminal level of beauty & grace, unparallelled by any other artists in the genre. Vicious attacks by one M. Page (USA) the visionary behind Come Closer, Cut Deeper. Hostile extreme electronics slice through organs like sharpened blades through ripened veal. Truly a masterpiece to be reckoned with! I cannot recommend this release enough!

From Funprox.com:

Photos of corpses and slit throats should help me to get in the mood for this record. Again the walls of manipulated noise and screaming feedback sounds are abundant, with angry texts spit out to make it more festive. Some tracks slow the pace a bit down, like the intense soundscape ‘Lie to me’, while others are almost rhythmic (’The art of obliteration’). ‘Malfunction’ uses lyrics of a classic Cro-Mags track, which I wouldn’t have recognised if it weren’t mentioned in the booklet. A piece I quite like is ‘The last thing you’ll see’, which combines uncomprimising noise with an ominous ambient background.

From Vital Weekly:

First I have to set the record straight. For a couple of times we
mentioned in reviews that Fire In The Head's frontman Micheal Page was once a member of Slogun, but this is not true at all. Slogun is just one man, and Fire In The Head is just another thing by someone else. Correcting this is the best way to do another review of his work, following last week's review of his CD for Eibon Records, here is a new one. Already. One might think he's going for the full Merzbow experience? Not sound wise, as Fire In The Head continues what he does best. A fine combination of power electronics, piercing loud, but not just banging on the distortion pedal, there is strong undercurrent in this music that is related to ambient industrial. Throughout 'Come Closer Cut Deeper' seemed to me louder and noiser than last week's 'Meditate/Mutilate', which had a few calmer moments to spare. Also a little bit less varied than that one. But Fire In The Head is a noise force who knows what he is doing, still. This new one might appeal to the die hard fans.

From Heathen Harvest:

The world is populated by some real sick *censored*ers out there. I’ve perused the web and seen things no sane person should or would ever want to get into. I’ve read stuff in newspapers and books and felt society losing its grip. The weirdos are everywhere. I see them in my streets all the time. Dressed in *censored*ed up hand me down clothing to match their crap haircut and adorned with stupid *censored*ing tattoos. Let’s not forget the body piercing. Walking pin cushions one and all. *censored*s they are. *censored*s they will forever be. Get a job. Get a grip. Get a
*censored*ing life. Sick bastards. These are the sort of people who will get a kick out of Fire In The Head. Music that bares none of the hallmarks of music. Anti music for societies great displaced and unwashed. Anti music made just for them so they can prance and preen around and say how hip they are. Michael Page…Mr FITH himself…caters for these sick individuals. He’s made a career out of releasing ‘no holds barred’ anti music that falls in-between power electronics and extreme electronic music. The 9 tracks on ‘Come Closer Cut Deeper’ follows along similar lines. Tortured vocals are occasionally added to the devastating aural assaults of the screaming electronics but for the most part it is a hellish racket that assaults the ears. Noise that annoys. Noise capable of melting flesh from the bone. Noise that only the insane could really appreciate. And the weirdos out there will love it. Love the way the whole
recording never lets up from first to last extreme muscle laden musical note. Love the aggressive and raucous anti music, with just the right balance to keep it from being a complete overblown mess. Love the uncompromising stance taken by the artist. Love the fact that Michael has created music just for them. Love the disgusting cover of cut flesh which they, the weirdos, will proudly display. For ‘Come Closer Cut Deeper’ is sick music for all the sick *censored*s out there. This is their world. And I have no place in it.

From Club Debil:

Schon das Cover der CD lässt wenig Zweifel daran, was den Hörer erwartet. Ein Closup von einem Menschen mit durchgeschnittener Kehle macht klar, dass dieser Tonträger keine angenehme Unterhaltung enthält. Stattdessen bieten Fire In The Head, das Projekt des Amerikaners Michael Page fetten PowerNoise mit Sounds an der Schmerzgrenze. Richtungstechnisch scheint hier eher MK9/Death Squad Pate gestanden zu haben als der oft im
Zusammenhang mit Page erwähnte Slogun-Macher Joe Balistreri. Gelegentlich fühlt man sich auch an Japan Noise erinnert. Krasse, kreischende Sounds, Nervzerfetzendes Gefiepe, Übersteuertes aller Couleur und nicht zu vergessen, die, wenn auch etwas spärlich eingesetzten, aggressiven Vocals. Alles wie gehabt also und wie in dieser Sparte üblich. Ein wenig ungewöhnlich und im Seitenprojekt Sky Burial stärker ausgeprägt sind die klaren Keyboardflächen, die gelegentlich unter den Krachattacken liegen. Das lockert den doch recht harschen Sound ein wenig auf. Eher ungewöhnlich ist auch, dass Michael Page eine Coverversion auf sein Album gepackt hat:
"Malfunction" von den Cro Mags. So recht zu erkennen ist das Original allerdings nicht mehr. Insgesamt ein recht ordentliches Genrealbum, das Freunde von "Musik, bei der die Ohren bluten" sicher zufrieden stellt.