Abandon is one of the most cathartic, brutalizing, and beautiful experimental releases this or any year.
Abandon is a brick hurtling through the windshield of a moving car, a purposefully antagonistic act that forces you to fully focus on the moment.
This is a suffering that calls itself up in order to cathart itself, which expels itself from the mouth, like bile, and is captured mechanically in order to perform the same paradoxical operation of penetrative-aggression-that-is-exorcism upon the listener.
The four tracks of power electronics that follow burn and burrow, every gasp for breath filling the lungs with more soot and smoke, every exhalation fanning the flames.
Music as deeply unsettling as this doesn't come along too often - it's a challenging record whose rewards you really have to earn, but give it time and it will eventually start to open up, and maybe even in ways you were never expecting.
Instead of the chaotic improv one would normally expect from a noise album like this, Abandon is an exercise in precision, drawing in its prey and exposing it to a sonic assault that will leave it both exhausted and enlightened.
FAVORITE TRACKS: MILKWEED / IT HANGS HEAVY, ACHE, PITTED.
LEAST FAV TRACK: CRAWLING ON BRUISED KNEES.
Horrifying, truly horrifying. This paints a picture of sheer terror and nothing else, absolutely anxiety inducing. I did not enjoy this album one bit, it stressed me out and I just overall cannot stand noise music from what I have heard (can you even really call it music? I don't know.) I'm sure maybe one day I'll find a noise album I like but I just did not enjoy this. On the other hand, this is a very artistic project though, I can hear that it has actual effort in it, and with all of the ... read more
FAVORITE TRACKS: MILKWEED / IT HANGS HEAVY, ACHE, PITTED.
LEAST FAV TRACK: CRAWLING ON BRUISED KNEES.
1 | Milkweed / It Hangs Heavy 7:14 | 90 |
2 | Ache 7:03 | 93 |
3 | Pitted 5:59 | 93 |
4 | Crawling on Bruised Knees 6:35 | 68 |
#4 | / | Tiny Mix Tapes |
#16 | / | The Wire |
#23 | / | Cokemachineglow |
#40 | / | Stereogum |
#97 | / | eMusic |