Strapping Young Lad - Alien
Strapping Young Lad was formed in 1994 by Devin Townsend, which quickly earned immense praise with its first album, "Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing". As you may guess, SYL is indeed the heaviest band I know. While there are louder and faster bands out there, I challenge you to find anything that has the energy and pure rage of Strapping Young Lad. In 2005, SYL returned in full strength with their fourth album "Alien".
I will attempt to describe SYL's sound: insanity in audio form. On first listen (especially if you are unfamiliar with heavy metal), you may only hear noisy guitars, crushing drums and purely frightening screams mixed with fucked up clean vocals. That won't change as you get into it more. But you will soon appreciate that SYL translates the horror of the unhinged human mind with alarming accuracy.
Alien emerged when Devin was suffering a serious mental breakdown. Last year, I asked what him what he was listening to that influenced the album. He replied "my own thoughts". The title is a reference to the 'otherness' of the music and Devin's obsession with trying to understand what we can't understand.
I will approach Alien by talking about the three songs which I think summarise the spirit of the album: the opener 'Skeksis', the ungodly 'Shitstorm' and the closer 'Zen/Info Dump'.
'Skeksis' is a monstrous abomination, so it's obviously my favourite song! It slowly builds for two minutes, introducing layers of guitars, keyboards and a choir before settling into some semblance of a verse. This comfort is quickly snatched away when hundreds of voices come at you from all directions, each with their own rhythm, tune and lyrics. It culminates in a horrific example of strange harmonies that tell us "Colours relate to numbers relate to sound relates to form relates to war relates to sex relates to healing relates to ALL GOD VIBRATION". The insanity continues for five minutes at breakneck speed with more layers forcing their way in.
Guitarist Jed Simon commented: "This is the one SYL song that was disturbing to me... I felt 'dirty playing it'..."
Listen to it here
You thought that was crazy? As 'Shitstorm' threatens us: "If you want fucking crazy, I'll show you how to be crazy". There is no rhyme or reason to this song. Time signatures change faster than Lady Gaga's costumes on stage, melodies last as long as your next door neighbour in the sack and lyrics make little sense. It's Dev yelling at us that he can't sleep, eat or even fucking PISS because he is in control of the infinite mind and he controls infinite power; while a choir of children tell him to "sleep little baby". Oh, and it's all about SCIENCE and MATH.
In Dev's own words: "It's a mental explosion... a short circuit."
I dare you to give it a listen
"Zen/Info Dump" represents to me the final terror of realising that this breakdown is incompatible with human reason. It's actually a quite coherent song but it doesn't stop building and looping on itself. The lyrics are also relatively easy to follow, that we're Gods and Demons at the same time. It hints at delusion, Devin seems to think that he is above humans and therefore immune to the paradox that he's now in. 'Zen' is further from the truth, but psychosis feels totally normal when you're in the middle of it. Just as you think a logical conclusion to the song is approaching, it stops and fades into "Info Dump". This isn't really a 'song' as opposed to 12 minutes of white noise. A morse code beat emerges as the noise gets louder before it explodes and leaves us with a woman screaming as if waking from a nightmare.
The morse code reads: x2+y2=z2 1+1=0 all is an echo reflections of an eternal present connect now and emerge om om om.
Make sure you have your speakers cranked for Zen and Info Dump
That's it! All I can say is good luck and godspeed, but you will have sampled one of the finest albums metal has to offer. Perhaps you might relate to some of it?
No comments:
Post a Comment