Strange Rivals - Proxy Wars EP

There have been a lot of truly excellent albums released this year, and a nice growing trend has been how many of them have been absolutely free. Coin Under Tongue released "Reception" in physical form, then decided to give it away shortly afterward. Celebration has been releasing their "Electric Tarot" album track by track for a few months now, also for free. Not to mention Beck's Record Club. This is all something I've been waiting to see for a long time, and not just because I'm a cheap bastard.

I think that in the information age we inhabit, music in and of itself is pretty much free whether we like it or not, we just pay for the choice of medium (since pretty much everything can be found on youtube, rapidshare, or some other google-able resource). It's become something certain artists choose to admit, making their digital releases teasers, incomplete demos, or just package-less companions to simultaneously-released lush physical versions, while other artists complain bitterly about the state of the industry and the need for pension funds. True, it is sad that most artists have to struggle a lot harder to get off the ground these days, but when the means by which to do it are so accessible, it becomes harder to applaud those who have done it in the past and not kept up with the current modes.

Strange Rivals is a reverb-soaked garage-informed trio from Brooklyn, NY, my hometown. Lead singer/guitarist Jeff Klonoski and I went to school together for a dozen years, and maybe that's why their sense of space so appeals to me--endless hours spent in silent Quaker meetings, where there was nothing to do except trip out on the boredom of existence. This band sounds deceptively world-weary, and yet there is a subdued ecstasy that builds within a number of their songs.

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The Body - All The Waters of the Earth Shall Turn to Blood

This album is a bit of a tough sell, and not necessarilly for the typical reasons. There is no shortage of innovative, driven songs, and there's plenty of atmosphere to spare. I shouldn't hold it against them, as my own reservations regarding this album are somewhat a mirror for the sludgier side of metal's larger ongoing issues. "Metal" has become a catchall genre for all things that deal with the darker, more badass side of rock 'n' roll. True, sometimes those darker things are unicorns and light-emitting sabres, but there is another side to metal, less informed by Hawkwind and Dio and more inspired by Flipper, Whitehouse, and Mayhem: bands that either know the line between good taste and bad taste but don't care, or bands that don't know, don't care, and spend most of their time trying to obliterate any notions of propriety lurking within their audience.
The Body come from this second school of thought, and are keen to show it. Their MySpace page is thevisionshallcometopass, and every picture of band members Lee (drums) and Chip (guitar) that doesn't show them playing live show them enacting some form of ritual violence, whether pointing shotguns out their window, proudly displaying their armory of large assault weapons, and dressing like medieval knights (as on the cover of this album). This album goes some very uncomfortable places, for example "Song of Sarin, the Brave" would be slightly less intimidating were it not for their avowed respect for Shoko Asahara, but the lyrics read like Trenchcoat Mafia scribblings:

“Prepare Sarin.
Inhale Sarin.
History teaches, but they will not forget what we have done.
The strength to shape and make, to justify love and murder.
Oh, my beautiful Sarin the brave.”

Honestly, I enjoy this music, and this mood. However, I can’t help but feel that a lot of this crosses the border from a healthy interest in humanity’s extremes to obsessive doom-mongering of the most plausible kind. I think anyone who consumes their entertainment in the commoditized way our society presents it would need to seriously desensitize, should they decide to actually participate in some sort of revolution. The lyrics on this album definitely present such a notion, as does the band’s general aesthetic, but I think it’s for the best that they don’t back it all up in any active way. Ultimately, I don’t think I care. It all adds up to a moving, convincing piece of work, and the fact that I find it almost too convincing at times means it’s all the more masterfully crafted. Only the best bands are capable of taking you to that place, especially once the surprise wears off and you’re still creeped out by it all.
I suppose my main issue with all of this is the line between reenactment and inspiration. When Vagina Dentata Organ released the Jonestown “Last Supper” album in 1984, they were making an offensive artistic statement, similar to Throbbing Gristle’s “Very Friendly” or “Slug Bait”. The difference between that and Whitehouse’s William Bennett screaming “It’s your right to kill, it’s in your fucking nature” lies in recognizing that it’s fun and creepy to revel in actual horror, but when you start exhorting other human beings to act based on that interest, you’re heading down the wrong path.
So I guess by that definition The Body stand firmly on the side of tastefulness—never telling their listeners what to do (with the notable exception of “Prepare Sarin. Inhale Sarin.”, which only the most stupid or masochistic would take literally), instead relating their worldview through the first-person. That may be an absurdly narrow view to take, but I think that there’s something fundamentally wrong with telling someone how to go about their life. When someone who admits to liking Charles Manson’s worldview is holding a gun and just doing their thing, that’s covered by Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. When that same person is advising me to prepare for the coming apocalypse (whether or not he’s engineering it himself), that’s where things get a little sticky.

I don’t think I’ve described the actual music yet. It’s good:

1. A Body - starts with about 5 minutes of all-female chorus before single-chord Earth-style guitar/drums and buried histrionic high-pitched screams join for the last two minutes.


2. A Curse - string drones and jittery post-punk guitar enter the picture, with strong drumming and more buried screaming. A true feat of production, this ends with a sludgy grindfest that manages to sound much louder than it really is.


3. Empty Hearth - opens with chanting from Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s Church Universal and Triumphant, which is used to maximum effect. Eerily enough, I had just heard the source material moments before listening to this album for the first time. It’s taken from a 20+ minute track that is more of the same mindless, breathless chanting. There are two main people leading the intonation: one male, one female, and for the couple of seconds where they drop out (I’m assuming to catch their breath), the sheer number of people that can be heard chanting along is overwhelming. The way that The Body use said source material is to underscore the intense charging rhythm and throw general sonic vomit into the proceedings, which gives it propulsion similar to This Heat’s “Horizontal Hold.” The detuned guitars and Viking-strength drums sound as though they’re tearing the congregation apart, so by the end of the song the glitches and pitch-shifts sound natural.


4. Even the Saints Knew Their Hour of Failure and Loss – the sustained choral tones that back the static, molasses guitar and leaden drums tint this song in a manner for which most bands normally use a flanger. The descending harmonies are done by three minutes in, which gives the song a premature denouement, allowing the final minutes of the song (all drums and distortion) to really feel like more of a release/freakout than an ending per se. This band’s shrieked vocals are unique, to say the least, but on this song they really stand out as necessary. Groaning, grunting, or gargling might work better on every other track on the album, but the wailing really works for this one.


5. Song of Sarin, the Brave – the fastest song on the album. Opens with feedback and shrieking, pummeled beneath the clomping drums. A mid-song spoken word breakdown derails things, which then progresses into the closest thing resembling rock melody on this album. Aside from the lyrics (which are hard to make out, anyway), this is actually one of the more comfortable-sounding tracks, and it doesn’t hurt that they actually rock out a little.


6. Ruiner – detuned delight. The guitar sound is really given a nice gritty undertone, with a glitchy moaning gurgle underpinning everything. The opening dirge is even repeated long enough to really give things a chance to shine, and after three minutes of build, is almost hummable.


7. Lathspell I Name You – at just under 14 minutes, the longest track on the album, which of course means time to stretch out and get expansive with their thung. Is that actual synthesizer buried at the beginning (I’m really not sure)? And saxophone (slightly more sure)? Maybe a string or two (yeah, I think so)? It’s doesn’t really matter, it’s tasteful but thankfully not really in your face. Even though it may seem like a misstep at first, by two minutes in, when they switch up the riff momentarily, everything sounds absolutely appropriate. And when the original theme is brought back with vocals and a chorus replacing the mini-orchestra, things really click. (Un)Fortunately(?) the song doesn’t really go anywhere for the next three minutes, slowly petering out. Then the guitar glitches out, everything slows to a crawl, and the moaning and retching intensifies. Things continue this way for a while, before a final blowout that features fuzzed-out drum-bashing and roto-tiller low-end guitar.

What makes this album so successful is that it manages to sound genuinely dangerous, something that metal often hints at without managing to reach, and when occasionally reached, usually lacks staying power. This album repeatedly disintegrates or changes direction in the middle of songs, which gives it a tension-and-release feel, making five minutes of nothing rewarding time and again. It seems industrial, in the same way a band like Mouthus or the Hospitals do. Industrial like a peaceful pastoral scene where the sky is brown, the water is red, and the fish are all belly up. In such a land, The Body could stand on a hillside wearing their armor, and know that there’s more to such an image than one truly brutal wedgie.