Cult Strange - Conjuring Feral Angels
The sharpest blades of the soul are back to infect, stun, condemn, separate, inflict punishment, with their sound which is the punishment of the gods of evil who have grown tired of all this hypocrisy.
Cult Strange made their debut in 2020 with an EP of four lucid sonic reprisals entitled Rites of Passage, a lukewarm dump whose vapours still rise from the cellars of our fears.
The quartet led by Aleph Omega take a warlike path, among the known skin of Deathrock, the ultimate expression of contact with the dead cells of our vital whims, and the sparks of Gothic Rock wisely kept under control, so as not to interfere with the messages, because every musical genre has its work and respect for the rules. The album is aggressive, choral, a mass of steel that throws us on the wet dancefloor, dripping with salt and sin. The guitars are the slaves of pain, evil bearers of the doubt that dies fast, that does not seek to be heard but obtains reverence, and it does so inevitably, given that Aleph's pen is rightly devoted to bringing vulgarity and injustice into our veins.
However, they are not only related to the Deathrock system: they are guitars that, despite the tons of languid liquids, move with dexterity, amongst effects and modes which range and have the peculiarity of generating a totally American attitude within the lungs of the world. The rhythms are heavy, boomerangs of venom that cleave the air to hit us, knock us down, finish us off.
The bass is the king of asbestos, coming out of Oakland to irritate all souls who are way too attached to the 80s: here nothing is trivial and those fingers know how to be blood diamonds which dirty not only the handle of the instrument but above all our listening. As a diviner, he finds the bad poetry, that has to be educated to deterioration, as revenge, as pulsating satisfaction with no intention of stopping.
With the best available drummer, what do you want the old scribe to talk about? The game, the union of the four musicians tends to make rhythm the twin sister of harrowing melodies, and the drumming is what stands out the most because it is precisely the complexity of the way he expresses himself that brings out, in addition to impeccable technical skills, a polluting black sea, having the movement of those dark waves, full of malignant grace. At times he enters Hardcore, Metal, in a continuous crossover that bewitches, displaces, intrigues, certainly stuns. As if an inner drive takes over those arms and feet to create a tribality you cannot oppose.
Illusions, velleities and whims are listed to be vehemently dismissed, and desires are put under the magnifying glass to be mocked and killed, amen.
The production is able to summarise passion, the study of complex tracks but also the ability to generate a swaggering, corrosive and often disarming immediacy, ending up producing enchantment and awe, in a stylistic range where sound is the governor of space and words faithful subjects capable of materialising concepts and propensities with froth at the mouth.
There is an evident intention to disintegrate, to hit the cultural void, to be radioactive seeds in opposition, to beat up the earth to eliminate the balance of our sterile path, to tell stories, yes, but within precise lucubrations that want to assert, to divide, to carry out the process of the identification of a reality incapable and devoted to the most boorish decadence.
An album that does not represent a city, a genre of music, but the meticulous intention to take positions, to create behavioural decisions, where the darkness of the night is that of a world that has lost its compass, its identity and its predisposition to be joy. But, it may seem strange to you in this context, this work produces happiness since there are planes of awareness, there are detachments that have been decided, and the true well-being involved is that of putting on intelligence and being souls that come out of the crypt of vice to give a more mature meaning to existence.
Songs like an inescapable crackling, the appointment with the magmatic implant of a process that does not concede favouritism, but raises the level to make precise judgments, amidst the shadows of the vapours of music directly connected to human failure.
We thus find ourselves, inevitably, with a rosary, a testimony to the debacle that Cult Strange represent as the designated sons of His Majesty Rozz Williams. There are certainly differences with him, but in common they have the power to offer bewilderment and reasonable concern for our existence.
In terms of writing, the analysis of the lyrics leads us to believe that any fascination with fear and desires has found the perfect home, giving agility and conviction, for a result that is within our listening: words as tombstones, tombstones as mute words.
In the end, we are souls filled with earth, blurred, like the splendid cover, which perfectly describes how our identities are tarnished, faded, with uncertain contours, our bodies muddy and destined to dry up, like the appointment with the loss of all reason. There is really nothing left but to invoke, without hesitation, the fierce angels because they themselves have failed to escape destiny, the cursed son with a devilish grin…
The band has done a remarkable job of amalgamation and continuity to establish and determine a position of strength, magically imbued with sonic explosions, daily dramas set to music, visions that twist the guts and make the brain a scratchy tangle of thoughts. In conclusion: if nothing is indispensable, it is good to know it, and this record helps visualise the mental dumps we keep unconsciously, because we are slaves to vice and the market, to attitudes that Cult Strange wisely launch against our faces. All you have to do is suffocate stupidity with Conjuring Feral Angels: you will be cleansed, disinfected and light, with your oil-stained feathers free to take flight.
Deathrock album of 2023 for the old scribe: I think that might be enough for you....
Song by Song
1 Prologue
It is up to a devilishly crooning woman to welcome and warn us that we are about to encounter fierce angels, with echoes and reverberations and a scenario evoking spirits in cahoots.
2 Slave To The Algorithm
The beginning of the song is deadly: with a guitar intended to get the shadows in big trouble because it is not afraid for sure.
There's a share of wickedness that shocks, with vocals which are a procession, supported by the other three musicians: take the New York Dolls from the sunless side and throw them in the rolling bass and in the sumptuous, perverse guitars and all will be clear.
All that's left for the drums to do is to whip those poor shadows that die without having believed any of this was possible. As an opener track it's perfect: if the beginning can be of glam rock derivation, you soon realize that everything spreads in wonderful dissonant digressions.
3 A Rose Of Chaos
A swaggering drumming, straight out of a dusty 70s cellar, opens the lopsided and catchy dance.
Then the voice and the guitar marry an idea of ritual dripping with Deathrock of pure class.
You can hear echoes of Germs and Consumers giving unintentional inspiration to this race to step on roses in chaos: the idea that Virgin Prunes also blow all their madness here, especially in the way of singing, constantly hovers. And that a macabre-esoteric attitude is the sovereign of this absolute gem.
4 De Auro Rubeo
An opening Gothic Rock slap, then we enter the Deathrock zone with a chorus of very suggestive baritone/sepulchral vocals, with the sensual acceleration of the rhythm. Then it is a slow fog, and Aleph's recitative, Rodney Horihata's malignant guitar, Buz Deadwax's atomic bass and Andrej Pavarotten's sanguine drumming turn the atmosphere upside down to make the city of angels icy. The pace speeds up again and the delirium is complete.
5 Hungry Skin
The shaman incites the brave in the first seconds of the song, the bass and guitar look to the malignant seeds of Black Sabbath and everything becomes concentric, a gloomy melody appears in the refrain among the steel flames of the guitars, which with trembling notes suffocate our listening. Let sensuality have the dress of the Goddess Eris and punish the violations of the purest thoughts. Vocals towards the end, repeated, give pleasantness to the vibrating nerves.
6 New World Ordeal
Buz allies himself to the fierce angels with a killer bass to open the track, a gothic ride that annexes Andrej's tribal drumming. The guitars vibrate within deathrock ceremonials and are metal sabres in the temple of dispersion, the world unveils its ordeal and we return, happily, to 1980s Los Angeles with eyeliner in our thoughts. Chaos puts on its best suit, running into these minutes of rusty tongs.
7 Blood Seed Sister
The guitar spreads venom, twisting the air and leaving the singing a modus operandi that is a recitative which allows space to music, among swings of vocal registers that reach the guttural. As throughout the album, here too we see changes of rhythm, of scenery, continuous wounds. Desires become complaints, invocations, rituals to be completed.
8 Restraints
The rhythm becomes fast again, but an unsuspected soft melodic line accommodates the murkiness of the lyrics, which are sung like a comet in search of a caress. The bass and guitar dance ferociously as the guitars cross like double-headed snakes. Between Gothic and Darkwave peeping through, the song shows a new and interesting side of Cult Strange.
9 Sages Of Djinn
We have in the ninth track the impression that bass and guitar are the seeds thrown in the air by Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, elaborated and sacrificed but still present.
It's, however, only a small portion: there are parts of purity and uniqueness in making this song a manifesto of an evolving musical genre. It is an extremely valuable fetish that is available to those who do not tremble at the idea of digging up mortal remains.
10 Torn Desire
The time for total delirium has come, the moment of the most grotesque desire that drives minds to the gates of hell is here, in these voluminous variants, where everything is oxygen burning in the bass reminiscent of Virgin Prunes.
The drum rolls owe so much to Post-Punk, and then there is the malignant Deathrock form that makes the track epochal.
11 Hex/Pox/Vex
A melodic bass more than ever is ready to deceive us: everything becomes screeching, blades that go down into the lungs, doubled voices, and Sex Gang Children who bless it all.
And Aleph who makes Peter Murphy an evil priest.
The shock is given by a brutal attitude in creating a swaggering, mindless ride to kill any glimmer of light.
Majestic, it offers elements of elegance in its attitude to become the apotheosis that exalts the residents of darkness.
12 Epilogue
This time it is the turn of male vocals to conclude the record, amidst electronic sewage and ghostly, embalmed voices. These are farewell vapours, the farewell without reply that closes a simply perfect debut album.
13 New World Ordeal (Smoke And Mirror Remix)
This version offers Cult Strange the chance to return to the dynamics of the 80s Remixes, to play with the alternation of instruments, to make the track a pleasant long agony.
14 Sages Of Djinn (War Engine Remix)
The remix of Sages Of Djinn is a shroud, an ordeal, a mephistophelian play of vocals full of echoes, the drumming and bass working hard and the guitars making a different sense when they come in compared with the original one. Killing Joke can be happy: on the other side of the ocean there are those who, like them, can cut in two the sky.
Alex Dematteis
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento
Nota. Solo i membri di questo blog possono postare un commento.