Reitelaitis - Pavargom
A clamour emerges from the mysterious Lithuanian land, jolting curiosity beyond the stars: the project of a single man whom the old scribe would like to touch the hearts of multitudes, in rapid progression of that self-denial of loyalty that contaminates the celestial vault with swampy joy.
An extraordinary set of seven tracks, icy and malignant roars, substantially able to make the planets bewilder: one finds oneself before a pagan miracle in which the beating of a heart that atrophies ugliness pulses, to ring the bells in order to celebrate the birth of a work that can only convey the burst of emptiness and lead the pieces into an ampoule full of class and electric liquid, drooling with soft restlessness. The fitful hypnosis of this Coldwave and Post-Punk conjugated electronics is the rise of sad thoughts that make one vibrate, to be able to annex the wandering of souls towards the prison of an addiction that is prescribed by the Goddess of Sadness, the one that makes one think and not choke one's breath. One dances with a mental arthrosis that makes the pleasure splash towards the clouds beneath one's feet: Pavargom reaps victims, contorts and shifts the axis of pleasure towards slow but inexorable weeping, like an announced tragedy that is late in arriving, but then it is crashing where one dies still breathing, even afterwards...
Just as a robot seems to have no heart, so it is with Reitelaitis's music, but don't worry: it only lasts a few seconds, because then the wires, the transistors, the metal parts, cold and arid, take on a temperature of their own, becoming red-hot feelings.
Let's go right away and bang our heads on these warm-hearted pieces of ice....
Song by Song
1 Laikui sustojus
It starts with an almost Dark-Electro, a slow expansion of synths overlapping like sheets on a remote glacier, with the silence broken by the procession of this mechanical funeral march.
2 Nori nenori
Electric discharges, the bass in the Post-Punk zone, assertive and rebellious and fat from refugee land in an unbalanced cry, the guitar floating suspiciously, and the dance becomes compulsory, with the voice that sows mystery, making us absorbed, flying without cheerfulness while everything becomes oppressive with melodic predisposition.
3 Sunkus rytas
Probably here we leave the universe: sadness becomes a messianic rite, slow but atrocious, because the song only warms up when it has to die...
The vocal line, feathers of glass descending freely, is stopped by the guitar that makes the sound a slow ravine. The stanzas advance, like tears, and Darkwave and Coldwave huddle desolate, then happy and full of themselves, in this wonder that vocabulary cannot define: words are missing. And it is melancholic mantra, the deflagration that makes us weep, with the final part of the track being a pair of hands clasping our horns.
4 Už uždarytų durų
The shock lingers on, but sees this song move forward and slap us with its synths that seem to come out of an electric symphony with the intention of giving lustre to the 80s without hurting, begging the guitar and bass to surround Post-Punk with a feast of melodic and synthetic pills.
5 Saturnas
Industrial soul presents itself with the urge for fierce electronics at times, with its single blasts, and then, once the bass takes space, it's hypnotic delirium in rotation, with Synthwave swarms to back it up.
The instrumental part proceeds, covers three decades and enters the dance hall until the voice, as precious dismay in turbulence, marches in robotic fashion, hitting our delirium. Then the dance becomes unrestrained and lucidity is lost, in the joyous dance with the grey clouds.
6 Atlieka
Let's all fuck off: let's lose our reason, it's useless to want to keep it, here we are really in trouble as it is a slow crucifixion of the good, we become vicious and ferocious, with this granitic base, an electronic that arrives at the mouth of the Coldwave almost furious, two steps away from Ebm. It doesn't need the vocal: it has all the screams frozen in its icy transistors.
7 Išeitis
The LP concludes with a slow darkwave pace, with Cure reminiscences of Faith, but the song is more theatrical, more prone to opening rays of sunshine. It even sounds like a song that bids farewell to the sadness and to us as well, and sends out sparks of synth almost like a smile to bid us farewell for a future we would like to see as soon as possible...
A simply sensational album: the word of an inebriated Old Scribe...
Alex Dematteis
Musicshockworld
Salford
14th March 2023
https://reitelaitis.bandcamp.com/album/pavargom