Corrections House
Last City Zero

Neurosian tolls, "Serve or Survive" in its eight minutes develops in the typical crescendo/exploding/fading/restarting pattern that the genre (the post-hardcore) provides. The imposing opener is predictable, following a script already seen and heard many times before, but it's perfect for introducing the listener to the album's mood, as dark and confused in sounds as it appears on the cover: the mantric, hoarse, dark, sandpapering voices intersecting with the acid squawking of a psychopath behind the microphone, cloak the nihilism and grim urban decay, which are the pillars of the artistic vision of Corrections House, with a strong spiritual connotation (and this is the peculiarity of the case) (it seems a contradiction in terms, but it is).

Unpredictable, rather, are the movements of this "Last City Zero," true manual of the "perfect post-hardcore" updated edition of 2013. And so equipped with the necessary appendices, that is, the inevitable inclinations towards stoner, sludge, noise, avant-garde, ambient, drone, folk, and chippiùnnehappiùnemetta territories, with a glance cast back to the alienating industrial/metal of the great Godflesh (a choice not so frequent these days, where post-hardcore prefers to shun technology and rediscover rather the roots, visiting the realms of psychedelia, stoner, 1970s rock, if not outright embracing the singer-songwriter style tout court).

Not so predictable, it was said, is the succession of the eight tracks, and indeed the second, "Bullets and Graves," has practically nothing of post-hardcore: an irritating riff repeated with manic obsessiveness and drum-machine cranked up to the max (there are neither basses nor drums in Corrections House) as only good Trent Reznor knew how to do. Still industrial, then, but also frontal impact, punk iconoclasm, for the most violent and dizzying piece of the album. Especially beautiful after several listens.

"Party Leg and Three Fingers" (another seven minutes) picks up the discourse left hanging by the magmatic initial track: the usual solitary riff of neurosian memory, the usual gasp floundering in the mud, the tribal pulsing then becoming martial (it almost seems to hear the sharp strokes of an infernal typewriter) amid majestic guitar assaults and infected voices. Plus, a nice skittish sax in the background.

But the story changes abruptly with the overwhelming surge of the mix of classical guitar and deviant electronics of "Run Through the Night" (and who expected it at this point!), an epic western ride with a strong apocalyptic flavor (sublime the sax stabs that even recall certain things by Death in June). The corrosive screams mellow into cavernous and evocative recitation, so much so that we could venture the definition Jonnhy Cash meets Wolves in the Throne Room, due to that "trembling" electric guitar coda that concludes the piece under the sign of the most sizzling weird black metal ( yes, come on guys!, do you see that slowly we're getting closer?, we're almost there: to the much-desired fusion between apocalyptic folk and black metal! ).

With "Dirt Poor and Mentally Ill" the album has finally taken off, Corrections House fly high, they seem to speak to us from another planet, and from there they pour black slime, toxic waste, and lightning onto us: sulfuric stoner/sludge in the service of a rotten, powerful, claustrophobic, oppressive sound, where the percussions become tentacular, multicolored, and above them rises the usual corrosive riffing, and behind the microphone the usual cord-ruffling performance. The track ends with a talking-voice that drags on epically to the tragic finale, where the agonizing and slobbery voice is left alone to repeat the title of the track. Thus ends the more virulent part of the work: the last three tracks will shift the sound of Ours to a different level, at least apparently more "calm," if you will.

With the next track, indeed, the arpeggiated guitar returns and the wavering lament of the sax, an instrument that comes and goes, but is always appreciated, especially in moments of "quiet," branding the music of the American quartet with a hot iron: "Hallows of the Stream" is a dark-noir nightmare, where a desolate singer-songwriter style marries perfectly with nocturnal and unhealthy settings, worthy of a David Lynch film. It is followed by the title track, another bilious talking for a spoiled rotten voice, a parenthesis imbued with restless metropolitan suggestions, a perfect antechamber for the final piece, "Drapes Hung by Jesus," which completes the mosaic with a strong injection of insane drone-ambient. Mostly instrumental, this long and exhausting final track (almost ten minutes) can be divided into three phases: a dronic start with stumbling dark electronic partitions (did someone say Coil?), monstrous guitar riffs as the central body, and a moribund finale based on feedback, drunken sax, and terrifying screams lost in the void (like lamentations of damned souls forced to wander in the eternal nothingness), emphasizing, as if it wasn't clear in the previous three-quarters of an hour, Corrections House's irreparably pessimistic and completely hopeless view towards a society (ours) now in shambles (but on this topic I don't think there is a need to dwell further, just listen).

In conclusion, Corrections House are skilled in blending and stitching together distant elements, ultimately setting up a coherent whole, however obscene and disturbing; they push beyond the boundaries set so far by the genre's masters, but without forgetting tradition. They craft the perfect album (or almost: more robust and compact sounds would have helped, where not only are a bass and drums missing, but a single guitar struggles to build that wall of sound the situation would have required), even though they put it all together in quattroequattrotto, jamming (and possibly having fun, though it doesn't seem like it) and accumulating material in just four sessions. "Last City Zero," finally, carries with it all the pros (class, guts, experience) and all the cons (old age, craft, fluctuating inspiration) typical of the work of a supergroup made up of people who know plenty. Oh yes, I almost forgot the names:

Scott Kelly (Neurosis) – guitar, vocals

Mike IX Williams (Eyehategod) – vocals

Sanford Parker (Minsk) – synth, programming

Bruce Lamont (Yakuza) – saxophone