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Wrekmeister Harmonies, "Night of Your Ascension"
This third album from J.R. Robinson’s shifting ensemble is primarily based upon the life and work of Carlo Gesualdo, a radical and visionary early composer of sacred music who is much more famous for murdering and mutilating his wife and her lover.  A second and shorter piece is additionally included that draws inspiration from the brutal prison death of Boston priest and prolific pedophile Father John Geoghan.  Both thematically linked stories are certainly fertile ground for a very wild and disturbing album, but Night of Your Ascension unexpectedly falls a bit short of Robinson’s previous albums.  There are certainly still plenty of highlights, but Robinson seems to be in a bit of a rut, repeating his previously successful formula with increased predictability and diminished returns.
In classic Robinson fashion, Night of Your Ascension again enlists an improbable line-up of Chicago underground music luminaries from several different scenes.  There are also a couple of inspired surprises welcomed into the fold, such as Marissa Nadler and Einstürzende Neubauten's Alexander Hacke.  Still another surprise is that the album’s title piece is ostensibly a loose reworking of one of Gesualdo's madrigals ("Ahi Dispietata e Cruda").  That seems like quite a quixotic undertaking, as Robinson chose that piece for its microtonal properties, which seem like they would be hopelessly lost amidst the full-on extreme metal bombast that "Night of Your Ascension" gradually becomes.  At first, however, that choice definitely makes a lot of sense, as the opening third of the piece is a timelessly beautiful reverie of Nadler’s ghostly vocals, eerily dissonant church organ (or harmonium), and Mary Lattimore’s celestial harp.
Gradually, the heavenly opening movement segues into still more neo-classicism, as Nadler and the organ are displaced by a melancholy string ensemble, then a remarkably convincing sacred chorus of female voices. The choral interlude is short-lived, however, as "Night" soon erupts into a predictable doom metal transformation around the halfway point.  Granted, I am not much of a metal fan, but I am hard-pressed to understand why Robinson thought this was a good idea.  There just is not much happening: a glacial drum beat and a simple, heavily distorted chord progression.  Then it explodes into a sudden, unearned crescendo of crash cymbals and unintelligible, heavily reverbed male chants and moans.  I suppose it all works as a show of force, as it is certainly loud and there are some cool drum fills, but it all seems arbitrary and meaningless to me.  As does the next crescendo, which throws some distorted black metal howling into the mix–plenty of fury, minimal content.  Admittedly, there are some neat things happening in the periphery at times, but the second half of "Night" basically sounds like a competent metal band with too many members and too few ideas, which is very disappointing from a mind like Robinson's and this pool of talent.
"Run Priest Run" is about half as long and lacks anything quite as striking and wonderful as the opening movement of "Night," but it somehow works a lot better as a whole.  For one, it is considerably less heavy-handed and considerably more unusual, as the metal elements are not the focus.  In fact, they are heard through a rhythmic wash of static and my attention is consumed mostly by the piece’s drifting, hallucinatory, and angelic vocals.  Eventually, the female vocals are replaced by howling and distorted male vocals from The Body's Chip King, but this time the transition works much better, as Wrekmeister’s lumbering doom metal is increasingly embellished with roiling electronic chaos.  Unlike "Night," which clumsily transitions from motif to another, "Run Priest Run" is just a long steady build and is all the better for it.
Assuming that Robinson’s deep love of metal is not going anywhere, "Run Priest Run" seems to be the way forward for Wrekmeister Harmonies, as it uses metal drumming and heavily distorted guitars to add heft to themes that are much more unusual and abstract rather than as an end unto itself.  That is dramatically more effective than basically just flipping an "ok, we’re a metal band now" switch midway through a song.  Also, a lot of the appeal of metal lies in its songcraft and riffage, neither of which Wrekmeister offers–and even if they did, there is no shortage of other bands already doing that quite well.  The world does not need one more middle-of-the-road metal band, particularly from someone who is demonstrably much more adept at making drone music or channeling Arvo Pärt.  I appreciate Wrekmeister Harmonies for their dissimilarity to other bands, not for their ability to play power chords.  It is the abstract, inventive, and artistic aspects of this project alone that appeal to me, but Wrekmeister's dubious desire to rock is at odds with that on "Night."  Hopefully, Robinson will soon find a better way to balance those two sides of his vision ("Priest" is certainly a good start).  All grumbling aside, however, at least half of Night of Your Ascension is quite good, so it is not a complete misstep or disappointment by any means.  It is, unfortunately, the weakest of Wrekmeister's three albums to date though.
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