This brand new 8 track album by Edinburgh-based noise terrorist Ben Power (one half of the Fuck Buttons, still on indeterminate hiatus) sees him explore further sonic territories, at immensely high BPMs… and volume, if he can in any way influence the live shows (“turn it up to eleven” is the usual request…)
After a short intro we a straight into the gnarly ‘Death Drop’, which should scare the living shit out of anyone… at well over 7 mins there is time to vary the beat, yelp about some impending apocalypse and still be home for tea – truly he has surpassed himself (and he has a lot to live up, BM is a massive fan of the previous albums and EPs)….
‘House vs Home’ is another lengthy track and BM thinks he played at least some of this at previous live gigs – there are some more decipherable lyrics in here, but only the beats really make sense…
‘Hush Money’ is yet another banger (there have been three so far, out of four) and again sounds a bit familiar from the last live show BM witnessed, with some plangent piano notes before the massive synth riffs kick in and the ground truly opens beneath us…
Further tracks like ‘Love is a Parasite’ are simply immense, in the case using the stop/start thing to ramp things up even further, true mentalist quality… ‘Creature/West Fuqua’ and ‘No Dice’ if anything provide some more melodic variations on the theme of total destruction – disembodied vocals again give us subliminal messages…while the beats play on…
Last track ‘Wings of Hate’ again brings the noise bigtime, a maelstrom of electronic burbles and undercurrents, like Tangerine Dream having a heart attack… it is glorious, and this whole album adds a lot to the Benjamin John Power’s considerable catalogue.
There are very few artists doing this kind of thing in 2019 – some great techno acts around but Blanck Mass appears to be carrying the baton previously held by Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle and others too obscure to mention – this noise can elevate and provide a release from the shitty reality of 2019… and for that we must be truly grateful.