Greymachine
On the exact opposite end of the scale are the Greymachine and their new album “Disconnected” which is a brutal and ugly album. How ugly? Imagine a low flying plane cruising over the remnants of a burned out city filled with desperate people killing each other for basic survival. Take that image and ugly it up and you might touch upon the sonic castration that is Greymachine. This is not music for the lighthearted this is the stuff nightmares are made out of. Droning soundscapes layered into weighted guitar riffs, feedback and general noise. This is the dark underbelly of the avante garde.
It’s no surprise that Greymachine operate this way since it features Justin Broderick and Diarmuid Dalton of Godflesh and Jesu fame as well as Aaron Turner of Isis and Old Man Gloom and Dave Cochran of Head Of David, God and Ice. Each of these musicians has mastered the art of turning extreme music on its ear and when they combine forces the results are like a bad car wreck. You want to turn away but you just can’t.
There are no “songs” on Disconnected instead it’s more like orchestral movements made by a dying star during it’s last few moments of life. The entire album sounds like a tribute to the principals of entropy. The movements manage to build up and then ever so slowly devolve into something incredibly primal and ugly. This isn’t cute or fun or simple, these are complex movements that test our resolve. The funny part is that somewhere hidden behind that cacophony you can still hear the heart of punk rock born form The Stooges or The Screamers. This is Sonic Youth being molested by Sun Ra and Throbbing Gristle but somewhere in there Iggy’s rubbing peanut butter all over himself.
I wouldn’t be a good critic if I didn’t point out that this album isn’t for everybody, no matter how “extreme” they think they are. There’s nothing catchy here, nothing groovy or even “heavy”. This is a pure and true testament to real experimentation, the kind that Glenn Branca would masturbate to using sandpaper and Spackle. You’re right, that is an ugly image, but Greymachine are an ugly band. I absolutely love this album but if the average metal-head picked it up he might not ever stop throwing up.
The one thing I can’t figure out with Disconnected is if any of this stuff was written or if the band just got into a room, started playing and let the chips fall where they may. Sometimes you can hear structure in the tunes but as soon as you try to pinpoint it the next wave of massive noise begins.
Realistically trying to figure this album out is like break dancing about Calculus, you’d use a lot of energy and still have no real idea what was going on. In musical world that breeds as much apathetic mediocrity as the current one does a noisy enema like Greymachine’s Disconnected is a welcome friend. This is music as art instead of music as commodity and you have to respect the bravery it takes to make an album like this.
