To put it mildly, this is a dark, creepy album. From the start of the opening instrumental track “Cirrhosis” (which is of course that nasty little disease thing that your liver catches from a lifetime of boozing it up), with its Trent Reznor style drums and atmospherically sweeping, distorted guitars, it is clear that Mr. Mike Allen (guitarist, Sunday Flood) has not written a happy go lucky album for casual couples to peruse whilst riding in a horse drawn carriage on Sunday afternoon. This is quite serious stuff. And don’t expect to be uplifted. I was sort of expecting something along those lines, since many of the artists off the label Sun Sea Sky Productions are a little more solemn, featuring wide open synth textures, angsty electric guitars, and high reverbed voices as opposed to straightforward indie pop or rock. But this is definitely the most sinister and moody sounding album from them I’ve listened to yet.
“Professional Reponder” is the first track that actually sounds like a song in that it actually has intelligible vocals, and it’s quite a good track. Across acoustic guitar strumming, Allen alternates from down ‘n out quiet mutters to long poignant yells reminiscient of The Autumns. The lyrics throughout the CD are profoundly depressing at times. Just witness: “Pictures yourself walking down a hallway that never ends. Now begin to picture that all the steps you take through this infinite hallway are painful mistakes saturated in empty fears that lead not to an enlightened beginning but to a treacherous nothing.” Yes, I kid you not, that’s straight from the CD jacket. I can appreciate the exploration of humanity and self that comes through in his words, and I would definitely choose this stuff over trite misrepresentations that are evident in crappy pop music. But it’s often difficult, especially on a dry first two listens to truly appreciate and absorb the massively intellectual themes that he’s dissecting. The album bears repeated listenings.
The first part of “The Mother Degenerative” really did remind me of early Red House Painters, and anyone who’s listened to Mark Kozelek’s lyrics knows they’re no walk in the park. The difference here is that the lyrics are dark, the music is dark, and there’s that added industrial element everywhere. “Scientism”. “Dry” is a kind of cool track with extremely distorted beats flavored only by a minimalist piano line and occasional screaming. The instrumental “Audible Head Trauma” sounds like something Mark Snow of X-Files fame might have thrown together; really immensely creepy. The same with the next 2 tracks, “Untouched” and “Child Like”. “Dying Words” with it’s unfussy, infinitely reverbed piano reminded me of a Sonic Youth track circa Daydream Nation. The discs ends with “I Hate It Here” which progresses from spacey atmospherics to drillnoise guitars to pounding overdriven drums. Lyrics: “And I’ll hang myself before I’ll ever give into the meaningless decay of the dreams that were dreamt for me.” Wow. Somebody please buy this guy a vacation in Hawaii…
One thing I sort of liked about the album is that the music is often more about creating a shadowy feeling than infusing the music with the driving pounding beats that often characterize hardcore industrial punk stuff. That said, I had a hard time getting into the distorted screaming on several tracks, like “Cells and Souls”. Trust me, I’ve got my share of NIN CDs somewhere in the closet, but I haven’t listened to them for near a decade. In spite of that, I actually found myself interested in many of the tracks. They weren’t fascinatingly unique from a musical perspective, I’d guess, but that ambiance and noise he’s creating can be really interesting. I think I wouldn’t have been into this dark stuff, except I’m currently reading a post-apocalyptic Phillip K. Dick book called Deus Irae which is about a group called the Servants of Wrath who have deified the scientist responsible for the destructive weapons that have killed billions of people. It just seems to go well with the mood of Cirrhotic. I wonder why?
My personal experience with the album was positive, but for other listeners, how quickly this album finds its way to the dusty back stack of your CD closet may be a direct factor of your tolerance for gloomier sounding tunes and your openness to highly skewed musical ideas. Just make sure to check any artificially happy smiles at the door.
Schmat
