Acumen Nation

Acumen Nation is an industrial rock band based in Chicago, Illinois.

Formed in the late 1980s as Acumen by Jason Novak and Ethan Novak, the band released several cassette demos before self-releasing the CD demo "Transmissions from Eville" in 1994. The two along with bassist Greg Lopez put the record out themselves under the Robot Records moniker. During shows for this period, the band added guitarist/engineer Jamie Duffy. Duffy greatly improved the band's sound onstage and rounded the group into a tight fourpiece helping them to get noticed by upstart independent industrial label Fifth Colvmn Records who signed the band and reissued Transmissions from Eville worldwide.

With breakaway dancefloor hits like "Matador" and the irresistibly punchy "Gun Lover" Acumen was starting to get noticed amongst industrial/gothic music fans. National tours with The Clay People and 16 Volt soon resulted and in an effort to capitalize on the buzz they had created, the band headed back to Chicago Trax Studios to record their follow-up entitled Territory=Universe. More mature, polished, harder and reflective of a specific moment in the band's career, Territory=Universe showed that Acumen had a dense multi-layered sound that could pulse on the dancefloor and was underscored with emotion. Standout tracks included "Mike", "Queener" and "You Deal With This". With heads now turning towards their latest, Acumen was invited to go out on a national tour with industrial rock pioneers Chemlab and enjoyed shorter stints supporting industrial rock legends KMFDM and Monster Voodooo Machine.

Although the glory days of the Industrial rock scene in Chicago had faded by the time Acumen emerged as a national act, through constant touring and sheer hard work on a number of different projects the duo have since established themselves as somewhat relevant within a tiny niche of the US underground scene. The Iron Lung Corp. was a band composed of Acumen and The Clay People from Albany, NY. Their first record, '96s "Big Shiny Spears" featured covers of Nitzer Ebb's seminal dance hits 'Join in the Chant' and 'Murderous.'

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