Thought Industry
Mods Carve The Pig: Assassins, Toads And God's Flesh

There was silence at first... But then it was as if someone, somewhere, took a breath... and started screaming. Loud. Too loud ("Horsepowered").
You're in now: I really want to see how you'll find your way out of this mess. You might as well resign yourself... and wait for it to end. Go ahead and sit on the floor, in a corner, with your hands pressed over your ears, since you're so convinced it might help... Stay calm and your head will stop hurting. Close your eyes, concentrate and - for god's sake - try to slow your breathing.

The room isn't spinning. You're not spinning. It's just that damned brain of yours conspiring against you, and if you don't stop panicking, you'll end up letting it win.

There are only two guitars (Christopher Lee and Paul Enzio). Period. The fact that they're wrapping around you doesn't mean they're snakes. That feeling of your temples closing in on each other, compressing your brain, is called a snare drum: some even use it as a musical instrument.
What you're hearing is just a voice. That's all. Sure, not even a stray dog being gouged would growl like that. But it's just a voice. And if it sounds like the screams of someone walled up alive in the walls, it's only because you have too much imagination. Maybe.

Beware of silence: it is only the prelude to another implosion, to another wound in your eardrums ("To Build A Better Bulldozer"). Beware of the melody ("Smirk The Godblender"): it might seem jazzy, fusion... sometimes it may have the warmth of an acoustic guitar. Probably, in another situation, you might even manage to call it folk ("Worms Listen").

Guitars. Beautiful. Normal. At last... Well... they're a trap. And you're falling for it.

If you come out of it, you might say it was thrash: it will be the confirmation of your stupidity, of how limited you can be. Or perhaps it's just because your brain took pity on you and partially removed what you'll carry within you like a childhood trauma.

"Mods Carve The Pig: Assassins, Toads And God's Flesh" ('93): the second full-length for the band from Kalamazoo (Michigan), an amorphous and deformed creature of the brilliant Brent Oberlin (vocals, bass, fretless bass, and Chapman stick, harmonica and keyboards). Fifty-five minutes of sonic delirium: armed peace of extreme metal, fusion, progressive, hardcore, folk, and psychedelia, noise and melody, Voivod and Faith No More, King Crimson and Meshuggah.

Incomprehensible from the title. Inconceivable in the structure of the tracks.

Pure "sonic surrealism", foreshadowed by the cover (detail of Dalí's "The Apotheosis of Homer"), a calculated jumble of sounds and technically immense structures, scores liquefied from being left too long in the sun, Gordian knots of notes, impossible to untie, lyrics weaving between political satire ("Republicans In Love"), tavern agnosticism (the delirious and blasphemous "Michigan Jesus"), cultured quotes and crude mumbling (... well... all the others...): every instrument, including the voice, is involved in a continuous search for contrast, violent restart, sonic contradiction.

Yet, what is most surprising is the sensation/certainty that there is a mad but very clear design behind all of this, capable of dosing sensations and colors, knowing always where and when to strike to hurt the most. This record is not just chaos, noise, or racket. It is the raving of a madman, from which, at times, verses of poems emerge: there is taste and technical expertise, sophistication, and unpredictability. Even the most violent moments often serve as a counterpoint to states of apparent peace, meditative phrasings, and finally more accessible melodic lines ("Jane Whitfield Is Dead").

As if, as a demiurge of chaos, it were the mind of a cunning maniac, highly skilled in recognizing and appreciating beauty, but unstoppable when it comes to torturing it.