Simply put, the best electronic album I have ever heard. Prodigy's Fat of the Land come in close 2nd and The Young God's A Second Nature in third.

I waited for this CD to arrive and as soon as it did, I played it. I loved every song in this album. The uniqueness of the sounds in this album are great and combined with the vocals, it's even better. The only thing I didn't like was the middle to end of the last song, Blue Sky. But the rest of the songs are why I listen to this CD almost every day.

Fluke is a band that epitomizes the concept of quality over quantity. They have only a handful of albums, but they are albums that one can listen to from beginning to end and have a hard time finding anything wrong with them.

Puppy is one of the hardest-hitting electronic albums I've ever heard right from the start. It opens up with intense and wonderful grooves and the trademark throaty lyrics. But it also has a more melodic phase in the latter tracks that are also excellent.

If you enjoyed risotto I really can't emphasize enough that you're also going to enjoy this album as well.

Fluke is beyond any contemporary description. They're very dark, their music is techno laced with industrial laced with trance, and the songwriting is...well, it defies the norms of the electronic genre. "Puppy" is a good example of Fluke's against-the-norm song-making prowess; very good, actually.

The album starts off strong, with the stellar "Snapshot". The song might be about a bunch of dysfunctional teens, but the lyrics lay on the nonsensical side. Better get used to it, as Fluke likes twisting clichés and euphemisms into their own breed of poetic beauty. Take, for example, the second track, "My Spine": my head is spinnin' so my feet don't touch the ground/my eyes is blinded by the light... The lyrics are weird but fun, and they actually point in a generally positive direction (more on this later).

The instruments, however, do not reflect this. The songs are brooding, harsh, and abrasive. They usually rely on pulsing beats and distorted guitars, alongside some of the most twisted synths I've heard. There is "Expo", the Kraftwerk-on-lithium mindbender. There is "Ykk" (pronounced "yick"), with its heavy jungle atmosphere and vocalist John Fugler's moaning (been bold/been brash/been cheap/been trash). And there is "Baby Pain" with synth that sounds like it was ripped from a Sega Genesis title and toyed with by the likes of VNV.

Don't let the menacing instruments fool you. Fugler does a good job of putting semi-positive (though ambiguous) spins on most of the songs (the aforementioned "Snapshot" and the INXS-like "Electric Blue" hang behind). "Hang Tough" has the message of...well, the lyrics speak for themselves: "and when it feels like you've lived too long/dig deep/be strong" "Ykk" speaks in regret of a poor history. Heck, even the disturbingly titled "Baby Pain" is, in a way, a love song that promises to be good for the longing of Fugler.

Make no mistake: Fugler is a lyrical genius, and when backed by two awesome instrumentalists (who go unnamed ¬_¬), Fluke becomes a force to be reckoned with. The band really shine on "Another Kind of Blues", an Andy Hunter°-esque trance track (the best one on the CD), and "Switch/Twitch", another lyrical jumble with one of the most awesome guitar riffs in all of electronic music.

The CD has some flaws (some of the songs are a little long, "Nebulus" is a mediocre attempt at ambient, and "Blue Sky"-choir and all-is unimpressive), but past these, "Puppy" is easily one of the best albums you'll come across this year. If you're a fan of electronica (especially Prodigy, or even VNV Nation), pick this "Puppy" up. And it has one of the cutest album covers ever! You can't beat that!

Puppy is a good cd. The songs that you hear when the cd plays are good. Even the cover is absolutely fascinating. A glasslike puppy thing on a scenic tropical island setting. If you look at the cover the entire duration of the cd play, you will like it better. Do I mean you will like the music better or the picture? I don't know, this is all I can tell you for now though is to try it. I've enjoyed every single Fluke album. Puppy is tops with Risotto. Should have waited to put out Progressive History until this was produced, eh?

By the way, why does "Electric Blue" sound remarkably similar to "The Hummer" from Art of Trance's Voice of Earth album? Hmm?