Argyle Park: Америкалық индастриал рок тобының тарихы

American industrial rock band

Argyle Park was an underground industrial rock supergroup founded in New York City in 1994 and active until 1996. Members of the group reformed under the name AP2 in 1998, and were active under that name until winter 2000. Signed to Christian music labels, the band suffered repeated controversies within the Christian music scene for not being positive and evangelistic enough in its lyrics and outlook as well as for including contributions from non Christian musicians. The project was named after an actual park in Babylon, Long Island, where the members of Argyle Park grew up together. Misguided also featured a myriad of guest appearances from the Christian alternative music scene, as well as several from cult status mainstream industrial rock bands of the time. These appearances include Mark Salomon (Stavesacre, The Crucified), Dirk Lemmenes (Focused, Stavesacre), Jeff Bellew (Stavesacre, The Crucified, Chatterbox), Jim Thirlwell (Foetus), Klank, Jyro Xhan (Mortal), Tommy Victor (Prong), Chris Donohue (Vigilantes of Love), and Lauren Boquette and Marco Forcone (Drown). In the summer of 1995, Argyle Park made their only live appearance at the Cornerstone Music Festival in Bushnell, Illinois. The musicians onstage included Dan Leveler, who would later become a full member of AP2 under the alias Level. In a different interview, Buka also described much of the negative reactions Argyle Park faced from within the Christian music scene. thus pointing the way to the resurrection of Argyle Park in 1998.

Argyle Park "reopened" in 1999 under the name AP2, signing to alternative Christian music label Tooth & Nail Records. AP2 released one album called Suspension of Disbelief in 2000. Scott Albert, now using the name Klayton, produced the album and wrote only two of the songs while his younger brother, Level, did the bulk of the actual song crafting and Buka provided thematic direction for the project. Guest appearances were made once more, but not nearly as numerously as on Misguided: Klank returned, as did Mark Salomon, and Joel Timothy Bell of the Tooth & Nail punk band Ghoti Hook also provided some vocals. The music on Suspension of Disbelief was just as varied as that on Misguided, with the band this time experimenting with gabber techno, pop dance, drum'n'bass, R&B, punk rock, and metal.

Argyle Park courted controversy from the time of their first appearance, on the Steve Taylor tribute album, In so doing, Argyle Park flouted the general expectation within the Christian music industry that bands will be positive and evangelistic. This, along with the generally dark image of the band, led to much of the criticism that Argyle Park faced from within the underground Christian music scene and music press. Listeners heavily and openly criticized the band and band members in online message boards and via email, causing the members personal insult to the point that they disbanded. Online debates and slander continued long after the disbanding of AP2, causing former members to occasionally post angry retorts and chastisements on the message boards and, if one post by Buka was to be believed, caused the band to scrap a proposed tenth anniversary remix project in 2004. Apart from all the controversies surrounding both incarnations of Argyle Park, however, their albums have been massively popular within the genre and subgenres of Christian industrial and electronic music. A wide variety of bands that have appeared on the scene have cited Argyle Park and AP2 as influences in their biographies and press releases. Tribute albums have been proposed at various times, with at least a handful of cover songs recorded. The more recent success of Klayton's Celldweller has also resulted in renewed interest in his older projects, including both Argyle Park albums.