Theologian & The Vomit Arsonist ‎
The Icy Bleakness Of Things

THE REVIEW

Echoes from the outskirts of the fallen empire, last remnants of a once-bright era now faded.

Decadentism is a real, almost tangible image moving through post-war dystopian territories. The evidence lies in the titles of the two suites that make up this collaborative project between Theologian (Lee Bartow with a cast of collaborators) and Vomit Arsonist, a one-man project by Rhode Island artist Andrew Grant.

"La gelida desolazione delle cose" and "Questa tristezza che uccide"

The sonic abstraction that permeates the record is dominant and absolute. Stagnant air covers the unsuspecting listener with a dark mist that swiftly changes its nature, now into muted tubular vibrations, the next moment into radio frequency disturbances, with a constant sound-insulating sensation, akin to dry decompression effects.

The sadness that kills comes from the sky, heralded by the roar of planes, invading our remote rooms with a load of anguish, and ex abrupto, the boundary between dystopia and utopia becomes paper-thin, almost tenuous, again rhythmically marked by tubular percussion.

The atmosphere changes, scenarios follow one another, in a mix of alternating sensations ranging from empathic paralysis to the atrophy of feelings. The record is strewn with strong sonic incursions, rigid and inviolable rhythms, and long stretches of stagnant, flat normality.

"The Icy Bleakness Of Things" is a hermeneutic work between resonances from the past and futuristic scenarios, a tomorrow that already smells anachronistic and a past that has yet to arrive, the golden age shining bright at the hour of its defeat, in the west of the world.