I have to admit; when I first heard the name of this band, and previewed the song title's, I wasn't really expecting much. Song titles such as "Kill yourself", "Sex with Strangers", and "Bug Vomit" are not, on the name's merit alone, a thought provoking experience. However, I think that is part of this band's twisted scheme. Without listening to it, I figured it could have as much energy as any local band in any city with any given member needing some extra hours with their therapist. But upon listening to the album from beginning to end, I felt like I had been missing out for the past couple of years by never taking the time to really listen.
First and foremost the production of this album (released in 2008) is absolutely unnerving. It is dark, chaotic, and set in a frightening landscape of sonically structured guitar tones, overly-distorted bass-lines, and drumbeats that gravitate between completely basic and uncompromisingly technical. The shrill, high pitched screams on this album could be compared to that of a torture victim; every scream (much like the bass, not skimpy on the post-production fuzz and distortion) bleed into the next guttural moan making lyrics sometimes hard to decipher, but the energy palpable and real. After reading lyrical selections from this album, it's probably a little more gratifying to just focus on the timbre and delivery of the vocals moreso than the substance. It's less thought provoking and more subversive and emotional; the words are more of a device to set you in the dark scene painted with the music. This dark, cryptic approach ties in well with the grandiose eeriness of the music. The overall message is one of pestilence, and contempt. Lines like "Sleep only in famine, fever, or failure of breath, diseased in my mind faith restricting", "I got blow, but decadence has me, meth and merlot impressing you as me... in this powerless frenzy," and "I better watch out 'cause I have a gun and I don't even know if I even know it" speak largely towards this concept . Upon researching this band further, I learned they lost one of their guitarists Daniel Kraus to a battle with Cystic Fibrosis...Initially, I misreported the fact that Daniel was not on this recording. However, Admiral Angry was kind enough to read this review and let me know (via myspace), that he was indeed on the album. Unfortunately, he was not able to see the end result of "A fire to burn the world".
To ignore the Willhaven and Meshuggah influence on the instrumentation wouldn't be very becoming of anyone. In fact, it's the first aspect of this recording I picked up and was totally into. The LSD melody wandering inspiration of Meshuggah combined with the straight forward griminess of Willhaven are ingredients for success on this release. I feel like Will haven, (in the times of Grady Avenell as their vocalist) were one of the most innovative and pissed off bands to ever grace a stage. In the times of Helmet and the Deftones, WHVN songs were always on the cutting edge of catchy and legitimately pissed off. I feel like "Buster" is able to pull the same thing off, but all the while sounding way angrier and way trippier than anything from the mid 90's. While listening to this album, I heard similar timings and riffage that could be found on "Carpe Diem", released by Willhaven in 2001. If you were as big of a fan of WHVN's grinding, hypnotic riffs as I was, this album will really speak to you. Admiral Angry cites some classic progressive artists as their biggest influences such as Harvey Milk and The Melvins. It is within these bands you can really pick up on the sludged out, repetitive, gloom and doom from track to track. Now, This isn't your run of the mill rip off band that basically picks a couple bands, rewrites their most obscure songs, records in the same studio with the same equipment, leaving you as the listener unable to differentiate between who came first and who borrowed it last. AA songs have their own unique bitterness to them that leaves the ear confused; it's so unpleasant it's pleasant and so ugly it's downright beautiful.
The pace of this record starts out kind of slow and simple, but progressively gets more dynamic and enraging as you listen to it. The music has more bizarre twists and turns towards the end, and doesn't focus quite as much on the grinding, driving repetition of one riff or the other (hence The Melvins influence)as in the first few tracks. If I had to choose two things about this album that are ground breaking to me it's the tone and performance of the bass and drums. The bass does a good job of going between an overly distorted 3rd guitar, and acting as a tempered axe in lock step with the drums. The production of the drums has just enough post-production magic to make it sound intriguing, while still capturing the raw energy of the performance. If you want to feel like you haven't eaten in days and slept in a muddy ditch overnight, this might just be the album for you. That is of course, if you're into that type of thing.
http://www.myspace.com/admiralangry
