World Eater

Blanck Mass - World Eater
Critic Score
Based on 27 reviews
2017 Ratings: #255 / 940
User Score
Based on 393 ratings
2017 Rank: #210
Liked by 22 people
March 3, 2017 / Release Date
LP / Format
Sacred Bones / Label
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
A.V. Club
On his third proper album as Blanck Mass, Fuck Buttons’ Benjamin John Power finally cements an identity separate from his main gig.
86
Paste
The mixture of gentility and dissonance is somehow more unsettling than if Power was to go full on into harsher, angrier territory. The balance that he maintains throughout is what makes the album work. It never veers too hard in one direction or the other, staying within a similar tingling middle ground where the best horror movies and thrill rides reside.
85
The Line of Best Fit

It might not hit Dumb Flesh’s dancefloor highs but with decent headphones and a windswept night there’s points on here that are damn near-transcendental, although the damage left might be permanent.

81
Pitchfork

On World Eater, the coexistence of melody and belligerence, of fragility under an invincible veneer, speak to the constructive and destructive capabilities of man. Power is completely honest about which instinct is winning right now.

80
The Skinny

World Eater is ferocious and intense, but it's also thrilling and bristling with life – and it’s these contrasts that make it such a blast to listen to.

80
Northern Transmissions

On the whole, World Eater is accessible and well-executed.

80
God Is in the TV

World Eater is an exercise in building something expansive, lyrical and emotional from a deliberately limited palette. It’s a testament to realising that less can be more, that pointed restraint can open up fertile creative avenues.

80
Loud and Quiet
It is visceral (synonyms: explosive, impassioned) and it is punishing (severe, relentless), and yet it is much more than Thesaurus.com’s noble attempts at adding colour to my descriptions.
80
Exclaim!
It's an album that's hard at work exploring stark, apocalyptic visions — and yet, there's room for beauty amidst the desolation.
80
Resident Advisor

If Dumb Flesh was a dance record about the fragility of the body, then World Eater is, perhaps, about the fragility of people. Power's frustration is clear.

80
DIY
‘World Eater’ finds itself skipping around kicking up the ashes of the terrain it just razed, equal parts intimidating and scatterbrained. It’s an engaging listen and a jarring template that perfectly captures a disquietened and uneasy era.
80
The 405
It’s coherent, exciting, and strong, and it gives you an in-depth idea of how you can articulate experimental soundscapes with rough portions of sound that cause commotion.
80
No Ripcord

It may be Power’s most fatalistic declaration, but also his most engagingly diverse, and his marked exasperations do reflect a not-so-distant dystopia that suitably aligns with today’s societal disconnect.

80
AllMusic

Considering his legacy, it's all the more impressive that Power found even more challenging places to go with his music, but World Eater's focused chaos is some of his finest work yet.

80
musicOMH

World Eater thrives on the tension between anxiety and peace, nihilism and love. That’s tough stuff to reconcile, but Power attempts it in muscular yet heartfelt fashion. This is an album that will shake you senseless, eat you up and spit you out. And it’s worth very minute.

80
Tiny Mix Tapes

It does a solid job of scaring the living daylights out of us, retaining some of the dramatic ambient drones from Blanck Mass’s self-titled solo debut and the intricate programming from the EPs, but burying them in the walls of noise pursued in 2015’s Dumb Flesh.

77
GIGsoup

World Eater isn’t aspirational, it’s nasty. it’s the sort of music you pause when someone knocks on the door. it’s the sort of music you listen to when you need to wallow in your anger, not assuage it; when you want to feel righteous and charged up and weird.

70
PopMatters
While there are thrills to be had with the sheer rush of the powerful music contained here, the greater sense of conflict that Power documents in his outward looking opus is the real success of the record.
70
The Needle Drop

Blanck Mass makes a grand, industrial-flavored return with World Eater.

70
Drowned in Sound
Above anything else, it is probably this fragmented, disorientating rush from one thing to the next which reflects our times most accurately of all.
60
The Guardian

World Eater is a brutal record, but there’s humanity in it, because Power is drawn to melodies: even at its most pummelling it offers sweet spots and moments of instant gratification. Even without those, its unrelenting nature gives it a hypnotic power.

60
Crack Magazine

Despite its impressive moments, World Eater seems like an experiment that left the studio too early, marking a crossroads for an artist who has mastered one field and can’t decide whether to keep digging where he stands, or to go out looking for new territory.

60
The Independent

Wreathed in loops and samples, swaddled in stacked vocal sounds, World Eater is former Fuck Button John Power’s response to the turbulence of 2016, and what he regards as “the inner beast inside human beings”. Unsurprisingly, it’s not a pretty sound, though there are moments of transcendent grace.

amygoodall
100

good

WhatTheFunk
62

Actually a chihuahua...

Two years after "Dumb Flesh", Benjamin John Power released "World Eater", more active with his solo project than with his main band, Fuck Buttons. Traveling from post-hardcore industrial to a disenchanted glitchy electronic retrenchment, Benjamin John Power's solo project, Blanck Mass, fascinates me. "World Eater" is a sort of paradox. It's cold, aggressive, and mechanical. But at the same time, it's very human and beautiful. The entire ... read more

BuffaloStaple
90

Personally, I think Blanck Mass' World Eater is a massively enjoyable experience to listen to, in fact it's been a while since I last enjoyed an electronic album this much. For some reason i've just been incredibly enamoured with this record since it came out and I haven't put it down at all. I've come to the conclusion that in my opinion, Benjamin uses repetition, clever pacing and hypnotic sampling to create an experience that is truly mesmerising. I just kinda get lost and immersed in this ... read more

Flannel_
70

Rhesus Negative transitioning into Please is a spiritual experience.

Optopus
83

Most of the album is solid, but Silent Treatment and Hive Mind are truly incredible.

Thalassophoneus
68

I am not sure what to think of it. It somehow feels very clean and at the same time monotonous, dissonant a possibly and bit overproduced, in a way that reminds me the feeling of a panic attack or night terror. In a way it feels well made, but at the same time there is something repulsive about it.

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Added on: January 10, 2017