Although I very seldom engage in the “rawk-enhancing” vice of copious drug use these days, I seem to get wasted on the amazing sounds coming out of the metal underground. The metal genre has splintered into a zillion sub-genres and cliques over the last 20 years. It seemed inevitable that after the relatively stagnant late-nineties, that paradigm smashing bands would emerge to take their shot at reinventing the wheel.
There seems to be a dying breed—those willing to constantly experiment, no matter what the risk. Mad scientists locked away in their subsonic labs, creating aural napalm. I mean Al Jourgenson is producing the new Limp Bizkit turd. Where’d all the evil geniuses go? As always, they went underground.
When industrial music first reared its ugly, brain-damaged head, I was greatly intrigued by its sheer mockery of everything before it. Rawk was deconstructed, placed in a bloody test-tube, stripped of its warmth and finally, shit out into an evil, two-headed mutant. Early innovators like J.G. Thirlwell, Boyd Rice, Coil, Skinny Puppy, Current 93 and Whitehouse seemed to live by the old adage, “No Pain, No Gain”. Armed only with homemade tape loops of clanging trash can lids, a neighbour’s kid torturing a cat or airplane crashes, the original practitioners of the extreme electronic scene were degenerate sociopaths. This of course, is what made them so interesting. As with all promising musical movements, the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode and Marilyn Manson reduced it to contrived, self-pitying and self-important drivel.
Many of the recent metal gods have taken some inspiration from the industrial stuff. It definitely has crept into the fiendish snarl of the Scandinavian Viking set, as well as unfortunately, the abysmal swill of the nu-metallers. Thankfully, there seems to be enough twisted visionaries out there like Today Is The Day and Devin Townsend.
Strapping Young Lad-SYL (Century Media)
I’ll never forget the first time I heard Strapping Young Lad. I was simultaneously terrified and invigorated, for HERE was something truly unlike anything I’d ever allowed into my topsy-turvy psyche. Music that positively detonated inside your rapidly deafening ears! It kinda resembled industrial, like a retarded, reptilian caricature, only 25 times more confrontational. A fucking slobbering gila monster! The track was, “Oh My Fucking God” an unrelenting assault that climaxed with: “Okay all of you…GET DOWN and SUCK... my buddies’….COCK!” -- Clichés clenched into a massive fist.
With their latest gob’o bile, “SYL”, the song titles tell the story: “Dire”, truly is. “Rape Song” is a song that rapes you. And “Devour”? Figure it out for yourselves. Devin Townsend twists every familiar metal riff, phrase and nuance into something completely alien. This disc is so over the top, you find yourself waiting for a guest appearance from Slymenstra Hymen. This is no freak show however—just pure, undiluted rage filtered through the mind of a metal savant.
Today Is The Day-Sadness Will Prevail (Relapse)
While your hands nervously, yet sensually run the length of the AK-47, your consciousness cloudy and yet transfixed by the mall full of wage slaves and teen trash—mere food for the gun. Beads of sweat forming on your furrowed brow… no time to waste… humanity needs to be taught a lesson. Decades of disappointment, disillusionment and sheer hatred have formed a huge, pulsating cerebral zit begging to be squeezed…
Ever had a day like that? Then Today Is The Day is your band, and “Sadness Will Prevail” is your soundtrack. TITD rub salt into your already unbearable, festering wounds—they suck your blood, torment your long ago condemned soul. This is not music for the easily disturbed—this shit will scorch you faster than a trip to a Great White concert.
Naglfar-Sheol (Century Media)
Ah yes… remember my black metal worship a few articles ago (Who Will Save Rock & Roll)? This be the disc to cement my dedication to the cause. Absolutely blazing from start to finish, this opus rivals even the mighty Immortal’s “Sons Of Northern Darkness” in the intensity department. You know you’re in for a good time when the opening lyric is: “Humanity what have you done for me? Denounced and cursed since my birth since I am not like thee.” (“I Am Vengeance”) Not the most original sentiment perhaps, but one every misfit shithead on the planet can relate to.
These twisted Swedes have used Dante to describe Sheol, saying, “each song is its own level of torment.” (Sheol apparently means “Hell” in Hebrew) And yes, there does seem to be a loose conceptual thread running through the nine tracks. Don’t let this put you off, though. You won’t be exposed to any prog-like drivel—every outburst of agony stands on its own as a mini-masterpiece. It’s early, but Sheol is lookin’ like album of the year in Popeland. [When do I get free stuff from Century Media already?] |
