On the back of last year’s Infinity Machines double comes this dinky three tracker, the traumatic jazz of yore siphoned into some gloriously sculpted discord – 36 minutes that are seriously pissed off.
A notion that gathers momentum on the slinky low-slung beginnings of the opener – a Jah Wobble dub, all languid and wanting. “There’s too many faces in the mirror!”, exclaims Paddy. “I can’t decide which one a want to wear today”. His vocals swimming a rich amniotic custard, a sense of the ever-encroaching world weighting heavy. The words tightening and the music darkens to a sense of futility – the austerity autopilot that continues to tear away at the fabric – the blind troupe of terrorism, the fucked over, the forgotten. All finger-spinning the music’s contours pitted in steady drummed thumps, a murmuring shadow fork-tonguing every word to glinting eyes of fret.
A well-crafted ascent burnished in spirals of dialogue, flowing words enforced in carbolic guitars. “This dull existence… This complete lack of resistance” – demons sardonically sniggering beneath, the bass sounding unholy, corrosive, the guitars hitting the forefront to “Wake up… “aaaaakkkkkke uuuup!”, strumming a wholesomely brutal nose-to-nose zeal with retracted squeals of lushdom.
What happens when your dreams turn in your deepest nightmares? — lyrics falling into alternating yells, guitars swaying serpent-like around the spittled words that feed the magnificent closing track. The 18-minute dystopia of “Sodom & Gomorrah” is announced by a monkish chantology, a sparrowed dawn bayoneted in blunt percussive strikes and wisping Middle Eastern-isms spooning a firm jaw line. An incessant vibe that oasis clears in reverbed goblins and tinkling bells, only to return with a pagan zeal, burring a heavy rumbling frustration as words splash the concrete like a ill-advised takeout.
Mirror is pummelling and savage – discord that speaks volumes for our times. Top-notch and ludicrously good.-Michael Rodham-Heaps-
