This experimental track shows some beautiful, experimental pieces of music (just check out the brilliant bass intro or the beautiful multivocal parts in the chorus) mixed in with Black Sabbath-like guitar riffs. What follows is one of my other favorites of the album 'Karma'. Those tracks immediately show that Swarm is far more agressive than most Death Angel and everything The Organization did. 'Bleed' and 'Never Forget' are more modern, experimental tracks and that is what makes the tracks good. Kick-ass riffs, energetic drum work and Mark Osegueda's agressive vocals (with beautiful backings by Rob Cavestany) make the song unforgettable. "'Heaven's Cage' is just the best song on the album and with its adrenaline-rush kind of energy. In Swarm they bring the mixture of alternative heavy metal grooves and nu-metal. These guys have been bringing high-energy, arena-caliber hard rock to us for years. This is for the rest of us, who understand that chaos, madness, pain and even self-destruction are natural and inevitable responses to an unjust and disgusting world of our own making.Swarm reunited three former members of Bay Area thrash sensations Death Angel - these being singer Mark Osegueda, guitarist Rob Cavestany, and drummer Andy Galeon - alongside bassist Michael Isaiah. To be well adjusted in this system is to be oblivious and unfeeling. Here, where martyrs, slaves, and pharmakos are not eradicated, but simply called by another name. It is for all those ostracized by and isolated from a totality which chews them up alive in a self-cannibalizing caste system. This album is dedicated to all who were lost to their own demise, all who have been institutionalized whether in prison, psychiatric facilities, or drug rehabilitation. Those who see beyond the veil need to obscure the horrid sight by any means necessary, but respite is always brief- nothing can dampen the glare from behind the veil. Those that pit them against each other grin from the sidelines, bellies full. With this view, the blame is placed not within the individual, but with the world they must contend with, and a society that is designed to fail them - to keep them gnashing and wailing, inflicted with an all-devouring hunger that inevitably turns in on the self. Turning these wounds toward ourselves can be seen as an attempt at “balancing feedback”, within a never-ending positive feedback loop of cause and effect. It is an instinctive inward response to a world of increasing outward violence, greed, and oppression. But this behavior does not happen in a vacuum. In our cells, our minds, our politics and our species, humans are self-destructing. “Devour” uses self-cannibalization as allegory for the self-destructive nature of humans on cellular, individual, societal and species-wide scales. As one of the premiere vanguards of modern industrial and power electronics, Chardiet continuously pushes the genres and everyone involved in them, and with the release of Devour, she has once again changed the game. Devour also explores new sonic territory, with denser electronics, groovier hooks, and moments of her most unhinged vocal deliveries to date. The A and B sides were each recorded as a continuous take with vocals from start to finish, marking a totally new process for the artist that allows the ferocity and immediacy of her live performance to resonate throughout. The album was recorded by Ben Greenberg (Uniform) and is the first Pharmakon album recorded live in studio. Each of the five songs echoes a stage of grief associated with this cyclical chamber of self-destruction and the chaos surrounding us that leads us to devour ourselves in an attempt to balance the agony. Like her previous albums, Devour comes with a strong concept that is exorcised throughout the five demolishing tracks on the album, using imagery and language of self-cannibalism as allegory for the self-destructive nature of humans. Devour marks the fourth full-length record from Margaret Chardiet’s project Pharmakon and her most intense output to date.
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