Have A Nice Life — Deathconsciousness
The double cdr comes with an 80 page booklet with the end half of the booklet doing the standard lyric and art thing- but the bulk of the book is made up of text purported to be have written by a professor of Religious History at the University of Massachusetts thats details the history of Antiochus and the cult of Antiocheanism that worship and follow the teachings and texts of this mysterious figure who was born in 1200’s and was part ocultic scholar, doer of evil and an sorcerer. Whether any of this all has any grounding in fact is unclear, but it certainly makes a great concept or should I say philosophy to build the album around and what an album it is. They managing to conjure up this sound that’s clearly born from the past and nostalgia yet seems so fresh and darkly vibrate with each and every track working on it’s own level and as a piece in the larger sonic picture.
Opening up the first disk we have A Quick One Before The Eternal Worm Devours Connecticut which has a simple rising harmonic synth pattern that's played over by solitary and haunted guitar pattern that plays over and over this wonky dark melody. It feels like it’s born from the same feeling of loneiness & warming otherness that much of the instrumental tracks on The Swans last album Soundtracks for the blind had. Next up is Bloodhail which mixers together crunching 80’s beats, wondering doomy bass lines, epic and atmospheric yet haphazard guitar scapes that's all toped off with these great joint male harmonic 80’s pop vocals- it mangers to sound both tuneful yet at the same time murky, dangerous ,darkly tipped and edgy which is a good description for the whole album really. The rest of disk one is a marvellous mix of forlorn yet tuneful vocals, atmospheric & harmonic yet grim guitar patterns, wondering bass lines and lo-fi electronics
Disk two sees them trying different things with-in their sound. The opening track of disk two Waiting For Black Metal Records To Come In The Mail finds them pumping out a synth beat lined dark post punk up-beat groove with a nice fiery guitar tone. Holy Fucking Shit: 40,000 opens with a simple tiny yet addictive electro beat pattern under strummed melancholy acoustic guitar strum, that opens up into Ultravox like piano/ keyboard sound- all topped off with muffled and rising male singing. I don’t’ love is muffled red Indian beat 'n' chanted vocals mix that burst into great heavy and muffled sound of wondering guitar ‘n’ bass pitch and feedback hazed keyboard.
2008 seems to be the year for great original and inventive debut albums and Deathconsciousness is another one to add to list. It’s messy, epic, tuneful, dark and heavy and ultimately an truly one off experience. To hear samples and buy direct pop along to the bands myspace site here