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Prurient, "Point and Void"
A record built from distorted, screaming renditions of Christian and Catholic prayers could’ve easily ended up buggering an already stiffened concept. Having already been thoroughly pillaged by bearded Norwegian sociopaths through the late eighties, this turns the concept into something beyond ineffectual ranting at the already converted. This re-released and reformatted six track disc sees Dominick Fernow spewing venom and generating tension.
The opener’s surprisingly melodic beginning soon belches into life with furious on-the-verge-of-vomit vocals. Musically, on this track and a good meaty chunk of the rest of the material, this genuflects loudly at the altar of noise. Higher tones mangle and bugger anything attempting to sit still, entreating the skies to rain fire, popped toads and dog shit from the sky.
The vocals on Point and Void veer between staccato shrieking, calling out the rest of humanity as spineless quislings via perverted prayer, through to a queasy alien voiceover disturbing evening reality TV viewing. As well as the noise, there’s also the use of unidentified field recordings (an early a.m. café, backstage, a studio mic left running?) that reveals occasional background noises and accidental TV / radio chatter.
Repeating this idea, the closing "Thou Hast Created Me" builds on this mystery of the where and why as US police sirens slip by. This subtler use of mystery, and a partial reliance on the listener’s ideas / fears / desires, shows that even back in 2000 (when the two cassette’s were originally dropped) he was ahead of the noise pack. Punishment is always worse if the recipient is kept hanging on.
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