NON
God & Beast

"Do you want total war?" Yes you want. Total War! Total War!

This is how "God & Beast" ends, probably the best creation by Boyd Rice under the alias NON; it ends in a way that sums up in a few simple lines the entire series of obtuse, misanthropic, and warmongering concepts on which the American has based his entire career and his persona. A persona that has been controversial and ostracized for what are, in the end, very negligible details if the records left to posterity are masterpieces of the caliber of "Blood & Flame" or "Easy Listening For The Hard Of Hearing."

And "God & Beast" is absolutely no less; a work lacking few significant novelties in terms of composition and experimentation, a factor nevertheless predictable from someone who is still there behind obsolete tapes and prehistoric machines, but at the same time forgivable if one remembers how he was among the very first pioneers of industrial, noise, and a certain approach to experimentation through tapes/turntables as early as the mid-'70s, with his untitled debut also known as "The Black Album." But the track, this track, as far as I'm concerned is the masterpiece of the career, as well as one of the most epic and glorious moments of the entire industrial-experimental scene of the '90s (absolutely distant from the glories of the previous decade, that of the deluge of tapes and the ultra-prolific nature that characterized the movement, from the loudest names to the most underground artists). "Total War," already appeared in the past on "In The Shadow Of The Sword" in a primordial, anonymous version without any of the expressive charge evident in the following, is therefore the summation of Boyd Rice's art, an entity responsible for one of the most violent, visual, primitive, and instinctive musics ever conceived.

However, the screams of the terrorist Rice are neither violent, nor brutal, nor forced like some pathetic proclamations such as "Mussolini come back! We miss you!"; he doesn't position himself as a herald of death, nor as an incurable nostalgic or an apocalypse theorist. His seems to be a sentence, he visibly enjoys it as he delivers it; it’s a delusion of omnipotence that does not accept third positions, a cynical and conscious reflection on the crap surrounding us and the decline of Man, which prefers 'facts' to nihilism and punk's impulse, and a noisy carcass ready to evoke scenarios of war and death much more violent and visceral than illustrious examples from the scene such as the romantic and disenchanted gray of friend Albin Julius or the apocalyptic branded Blood Axis, in a flow of raw and approximate drones, ultra-lo-fi overdubs and an impeccable work of massacre on tapes, that made him famous; a battalion that takes no prisoners, a decisive and martial rhythm that leaves no doubt about Rice's intentions and answers, in what we might parallelly interpret as a sort of anthem to the social-Darwinist theories of the Abraxas movement he himself founded (which argues humans are destroying this earth and the only way to clean it is death, in fact accepting any depopulation action because - I quote verbatim - "is good"). Not exactly a sharp, articulated, or brilliant theory, therefore, and one that resonates quite ridiculous if the one who conceives it is a guy who collects barbies, a Disney fetishist, a fifty-year-old who plays dress-up as a nazi. And a noisy artist of considerable respect.

And to say that, as the name suggests, the record, which overall wants to rather pretentiously delve into the dualities and contradictions of human nature, started introspective and 'measured' as Rice has rarely been, with the contribution of the usual clique of figures from the neofolk scene (Douglas P., who will also play bells(!), the sweet and angelic Rose McDowall..). So here are vocal rants that are altogether poised on "God and Beast" (paired with drones that are not assaultive as usually happens, rather static and minimalist), the trembling wall "Between Venus and Mars" (remarkable if it weren't for the same rant as before repeated without variation for seven minutes seven), the spectral rarefactions of "Lucifer, The Morning Star" (with deafening tolling bells and the warbles of a McDowall different from how we are used to hearing her, a McDowall in an unsettling and infernal guise) and "Millstones" (which sees Douglas P.'s aseptic recitation emerge uncertainly behind a layer of dronic emanations composed of disjointed catacombal voices and shredded and overly slowed Gregorian chants, in a craftsmanship not dissimilar to many Steven Stapleton experiments as director of the early Current 93 works. The wave beat of "The Law" is enriched by the lilting of McGowall now back to her standard lulling Chanting and la la la that we like so much; on "The Coming Forth" it's instead the bellowing voice of an intoxicated Rice that takes the lead, although almost buried by the usual piles of noise and the relentless drumming).

However, the last tracks are Boyd Rice at his beastly best: "Out Out Out", a remake of the version on the EP "Rise," is brilliant and demented, with a cyclic and mechanical rhythm, which even before being a transcription in music of the concept of 'industrial' would seem like Thomas Brickmann's android and minimal techno, accompanying his sick and delirious verses ("Out! Out! Out! Cut it out! Out! Out!"), "Phoenix" is memorable, among the most shocking and traumatic noise walls our man has ever assembled, an uneasy carpet of white noise in constant ascent, a climb and preamble toward the absolute destruction that is "Total War", which we have already discussed, one of the most devastating tracks ever appeared on the scene, and the fact that it all limits to militaristic drumming, a nervous siren, Rice's proclaiming and nothing more is not insignificant.

There are also two ghost tracks, the first being a cold, detached reading - and frankly useless - of an unspecified poem, the second, much better received, is instead a wall of brutal harsh-noise on the lines of "Phoenix." Nine vehement minutes of pure noise chaos that remind us of the (NON)musical virtues of this man. Expecting anything else is useless, as for thirty years Boyd Rice has essentially been making no more and no less than the same piece. But he does it damn well.