Sure, even after releasing two information that also mangle, muddle and mystify the minds of those that dare pay attention, the trio wish to play musical hopscotch. They refuse to yield to the identical ol’, identical ol’ as they’re averse to madness – and but, they embrace calamity.
Merely, they love , sudden apocalypse the place musical and lyrical depravity abounds. And what higher approach to entertain their appetites for surprising wickedness than via their aptly-titled new document, Hellfire.
Boldly asserting itself by mere title, one might in all probability guess what’s to be skilled via the foreboding flames. The primary full-fledged second on Hellfire, “Sugar/Tzu”, brings the pyrotechnic mindfuckery from the sound of a bell — actually. Prefaced by the adrenaline rush of a hoop announcer declaring the massacre of a century between two light-heavyweight opponents, Solar Sugar and Solar Tzu, listeners are prepped for fast gusto and fireworks, however not with out examined expectations.
Black Midi ensue to cheekily comply with this guttural announcement with thirty seconds of our soft-spoken narrator, Geordie Greep, purring above smooth drum shuffles, framing his personal selfish demeanor as bravado: “Posterity will present me to be / The best the world has ever seen / A genius amongst non-entities” Greep isn’t any stranger to carrying masks. Right here, he dons considered one of cryptic delicacy. Nevertheless, the unexpectedly tender apart is simply temporary because the band’s peerless drummer Morgan Simpson kicks into full gear, pounding away at his package at hypersonic velocity.
Black Nation, New Highway’s Lewis Evans joins within the disorderly enjoyable, parallelling Simpson’s frantic enjoying with the luny theatrics of his saxophone. As this story of egotistical homicide unfolds, the erratic jazz-fusion of “Sugar/Tzu” darts aimlessly with the same ebb-and-flow of knowledgeable boxer in desperation along with his again towards the ropes, maneuvering the threatening punchers of his opponent.
A layer deeper into this comedic and infrequently self-indulgent depiction of hell, black midi set a brand new, albeit kindred scene – a mangled one at that – of a race with “The Race Is About To Start”. Right here, deluged by the deranged cacophony of the band’s avant prog-rock, characters of assorted vile nature and namesake vie with each other, one-upping one another with their respective hideousness and deserved place in hell. There is a Mrs. Gonnorhea, an Eye Sore, a Good P. Deadman, and our expensive murderous good friend, Solar Tzu. Right here, our off-kilter, Greep-ian narrator recounts “There is a winner and a loser”, with indifference.
Although listeners are once more tricked into calm stillness, “The Race Is About To Start” is black midi most feral. Earlier than slowing to a sultry lull for the final two minutes, Greep wears his most flagrant face and unloads with a frantic spiel which will remind a few of Serj Tankian, however spun a level or two extra paranoid. As he vomits phrases about literal and figurative nothingness, the remainder of the band performs its brains out, seemingly making noise for the sake of creating noise and unloading perversion onto the desk for all to be overwhelmed by.
The audibly demented hullabaloo of those two tracks pervades everything of Hellfire. The music usually does not make sense at first look, and neither do the lyrics – an actual black midi particular. There isn’t any standard plot nor a conceptual line to contour the ruins of Hellfire‘s chaos. Relatively, it is cynical gumbo, an amalgamation of confounding vignettes about a couple of degenerates in demise.
That stated, the document’s descent into hell deepens additional, intensifying when it reaches its everlasting tipping level. On “27 questions”, listeners are launched to at least one remaining character by the title of Freddie Frost – a dying actor delivering one final efficiency – solely to combust in entrance of his viewers. However earlier than his perishing, he, a person of nice self-purported stature, expertise, and significance, lets unfastened with about 20 or so questions that he is taken to his dying mattress, all of which go unanswered when he lastly kicks the bucket: “Is grass ever greener? / Is the need actually free? / Is it solely black you see once you be part of the deceased?” None of those questions matter once you’re in hell, and that is okay – I suppose – when you may have a band like black midi to soundtrack countless struggling and Geordie Greep narrating the distress.
Black midi are one of many bands that may proceed to invigorate with one thing new and unheard with each outing. Although most of the band’s distinct hallmarks present face – heavier than ever, even – someway their newest document sounds miraculously and hideously new, proving their aversion to any senseless repetition.
