Skinny Puppy
Last Rights

THE REVIEW

Anno Domini 1991.

While "Nevermind" by Nirvana crosses the airwaves worldwide, taking mainstream rock to a level at least less idiotic than the embarrassing hair metal of the same period, the legendary post-industrial underground trio "Cuccioli Malnutriti," led by the charismatic yet neurotic Nivek Ogre (aka Kevin Ogilvie) and accompanied by cEvin Key (aka Kevin Crompton) and the late, highly underrated Dwayne Goettel, with legendary Dave "Rave" Ogilvie at the mixing desk, give birth to a masterpiece, perhaps THE masterpiece of Skinny Puppy, on all fronts, namely the full-length called "Last Rights."

An album created with the entire Puppy "Family" in the grip of heavy drugs (Goettel and Ogre were primarily heroin supporters, and unfortunately, the poor and talented Dwayne will be the official cause of the breakup at the release of "The Process," a Puppy album released in '96, as he would die of an overdose in August '95), hating each other throughout the album, with screams, resignations from the band retracted after an hour, and real nervous breakdowns occurred during the recording of the album, this "Last Rights" paradoxically represents the peak of unity, creativity, and artistic/musical integrity of the trio.

Today's Puppy have little or nothing to do (a light version without good songwriting of OhGr, bastardized by the omnipresent control freak that cEvin Key has become) compared to the certainly more challenging but a hundred times more intriguing Puppies of this album 21 years ago, which even today remains avant-garde: heavy yet constantly varying rhythmic patterns between real drums and an arsenal of synthetic basslines and drum machines by Key, a hell of schizophrenic samples, movie snippets, and Goettel's unhealthy melodies, lyrics halfway between visionary and Burroughsian cut-up nature spat out from Ogre's hoarse and devastated voice, this album is a massive personal drama of the three and their lives set to music.

It already starts with an unhealthy atmosphere with the disturbing "Love In Vein" where Ogre's voice screams shamelessly, distorted or not, it gives chills, the music evolves to crumple into the thoughtfulness of the beautiful "Killing Game," and then explodes with episodes so violent they make no logical sense for us who listen perhaps sitting down or trying to dance to music that doesn't want us to dance but just wants to lay us down on the ground and possibly kick us in the teeth: "Knowhere?" and "Scrapyard," the two examples of a senseless white-hot sonic assault, like those aforementioned malnourished puppies suffering from rabies, give us a hit like "Inquisition" and a reflective moment like "Riverz End," to completely implode with the long and dangerous suite of artfully created electroacoustic noises in "Download," the name of a project Goettel and Key founded together with Mark Spybey of Dead Voices On Air and Genesis P-Orridge (the early albums with Goettel in the lineup up to "The Eyes Of Stanley Pain" are crucial), the entire album is one of the absolute undisputed peaks if we have to talk about high-quality electronic music in every respect (even the graphics, particularly curated, resemble a sort of complex puzzle to immerse oneself in during listening).

It's a pity for me that the Puppy have gone back to resurrecting their band without Goettel, creating well-made albums, but in fact, always with that sad void left by the absence of one of the three, which has definitively lowered the standards of an otherwise unattainable band, thanks precisely to that lineup.

Historic album, don't miss it.