I always hearing a label with a distinctive "sound" trying new things: while the Hymen/Ant-Zen axis has been mining the world of industrial and noise tinged electronica for years (without becoming stagnant), something completely out of character can be either a rousing success or utter failure. Thankfully, this disc falls completely into the former, with each track defying expectations and going even more “out there” than the one before.
I was first exposed to C. Peirce’s mostly solo project (with occasional co-conspirators) on this year’s Miwak Twelve compilation, in which the track "Jailbait Rock" (also here) was best described as "rockabilly glitch metal." There it stood out as the wonderfully sore thumb amidst two discs of more traditional electronic sounds. Here, that deviation is the norm, with that sound infusing most of these tracks in various different ways, creating the cyber-hillbilly metal sound Ministry touched on with "Jesus Built My Hotrod" but never reached again, and the 1950s sleaze cheese that defined the Thrill Kill Kult before people stopped caring.
Structured in a very film-like way, the opening "Theme from the Sick Generation" begins dramatically with sweeping reverbs and massive drums, along with cliché sampled strings and Reefer Madness era dialog samples, before thrusting headlong into that industrialized rockabilly sound the band does so well. Rather than just sticking that way, it’ll just as quickly jump into jazz horns as it will scum rock. "Living In A Monochromatic World" also jumps between the two extremes, with a bass synth line that sounds like it was programmed by some shoeless hillbilly between meth and moonshine binges.
At other times, the rockabilly sound gives way to some acid damaged surf rock, like in "LSD Made a Wreck of Me," which could be the theme to an awful 1960s sitcom until it all spazzes out to 303 acid techno freakouts. The surf sound resurfaces in "Pills to Make You Fun," but it is less of the focus when compared to the cheesy keyboards and breakbeats. "My Hippy Sex Cult" takes the surf sound and throws it into more speed metal climates, making it also somewhat of a different take on the same theme.
"Bad Girls go to Hell" keeps a bit of the surf, but becomes more of a struggle between sleazy porn jazz and spy music pieces, with a modicum of glitch noise thrown in for additional flavoring. Even to mix things up a bit more, "A Side of Dirty" opens with some rather uncharacteristic acoustic guitar before going balls deep in pure funk, with drums that could destroy small children. "Dance of the Lumpenproles" is another one crossing even further into weirdness, mixing big band instrumentation with randomized noisy chaos. The closing title track is perhaps the ultimate climax of sound, mixing stiff industrial beats with harpsichord, horns, and actual strings, ending with purely symphonic territory.
While "rockabilly glitch metal" could still perhaps be the closest thing to a genre to throw this into, even that is a bit too limiting. It’s more a smattering of uncountable genres into one concise, dirty package, sort of like if I blew up my grandfather’s and my records, then taped the pieces together. Although that probably wouldn’t sound as good.
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