Transfixiation ... is perhaps the closest recorded representation of the band's explosive live sound to date.
If their last album, Worship, was a sleek race car, then Transfixiation is where they crash it just to watch it burn.
A Place to Bury Strangers is known to be a behemoth on stage, and Transfixiation is as loud as the group's reputation merits. Yet there's also quite a bit of dynamic nuance to these songs.
The band’s small but noticeable stabs at restraint make Transfixiation another step forward in A Place To Bury Strangers’ evolution from brutal experimentalists to more pop-conscious noise rockers.
This is a varied record, but there’s measure to the level of experimentation; the idea of maintaining a sense of cohesion is paid far more regard than on Worship.
Compared to the coolly detached electro-infused pulse of 2012's somewhat disappointing Worship, there's a decidedly rawer energy to the recordings on Transfixiation.
Transfixiation is intense, even in comparison to A Place To Bury Strangers’ previous albums. But without spikes and valleys, even noise rock can become white noise.
There may be variances in sound on a track-by-track basis, but individual songs lack any real dynamic shifts and as a result this makes Transfixiation a fairly gruelling listen.
Transfixiation generally features fairly quick songs that don't wallow too much in self-indulgent noisemaking. They make you pant just long enough, then give you a breather until the next reverberating hurricane of sound.
Distinctly lacking though is a sense of urgency or purpose; Transfixiation keeps the 30 year-old racket going but without really adding much to the blueprint.
The New York trio's live shows are consistently overwhelming, and Ackermann ... conceived 'Transfixiation' to be as instinctive. So it's odd that parts of it sound too careful.
Transfixiation sounds, in places, like a band that are occasionally struggling with their own identity.
For a band whose songs so frequently draw on the depths of despair, incapacitating depression, and occasional kink for inspiration, the grousing of Transfixiation feels perfunctory.
It’s hard not to regard Transfixation as anything but a failed experiment, an attempt by the band to strip themselves down to their barest essence only to find that they don’t have much to work with.
1 | Supermaster 3:21 | |
2 | Straight 3:22 | |
3 | Love High 1:55 | |
4 | What We Don't See 2:25 | |
5 | Deeper 6:08 | |
6 | Lower Zone 2:31 | |
7 | We've Come So Far 5:07 | |
8 | Now It's Over 4:09 | |
9 | I'm So Clean 2:41 | |
10 | Fill the Void 4:21 | |
11 | I Will Die 3:14 |
#43 | / | Piccadilly Records |