Human Impact – Human Impact

Ipecac

What a mouth watering prospect: two parts Cop Shoot Cop, one of whom was in Swans; one part Swans and one part Unsane. You just know that Human Impact is going to be one of those slinky New York vengeance bands that prowl the darkened streets, an eye out for trouble and a savage way of dealing with any they come across.

Such was my thinking and the opening of the album didn’t disappoint. I have missed Cop Shoot Cop; I remember catching them at the Reading Festival many years ago and their dark, industrial street poetry was right on the money. The fact that Phil Puleo went on to Swans made perfect sense, and in that intervening time, the psychic connection he has formed with Chris Pravdica amid the intensive touring and recording of that band means that they are one of the most formidable rhythm sections in music today. Add them to the crazy smartness and stinging Telecaster of Chris Spencer, and the always-interesting and dramatic soundscapes of CSC’s Jim Coleman and this can only be a heavenly combination.

Opener “November” has Pravdica’s bass pure and jumpy, leading the way. There is a clean but threatening strength to the sound, and the drums are also harsh and trebly, the snare cracking like gunshots. The tremolo wave of the guitar is severe, and Spencer’s vocals are part crazed and part resigned: “steal to get high, an ocean of lies”. It is angry yet jaded, and that is the tone of most of the album. When Coleman’s city-wise samples kick in, it takes the track and pushes it widescreen, the rhythm section rising to a crescendo. This is kind of the formula as you might expect, but it is not a question of ten versions of the same idea; and even if it were, it is a great idea, with Puleo and Pravdica merging seamlessly to create an extraordinary bed tension over which Coleman and Spencer play with your emotions, showing you how things really are, highlighting the dirt behind life’s façade.

I was thinking of the comparison between Spencer and Cop Shoot Cop’s Tod A, and I think it feels as though Spencer is more on the look out, a bit sharper, with attack being the best form of defence — and if he sounds a little unhinged at times, then maybe you will pay more attention. Things change a little on “Portrait”, with a drifting, searching intro, the Telecaster exposing its circuits as Coleman’s backdrop moves and dances around like a prizefighter. The drums are tribal here, and the guitar wielded like a scalpel. “A portrait of greed” is one line that stands out before the band all leaps into the fray. The Spanish guitar flourishes can’t hide that this is a city band playing a city story; and although the love is there, there is also frustration.

Coleman’s constructions are like edifices against which the rest of the group are reflected. They swell and recede as the soundscapes move, but the feeling of immensity and foreboding is inescapable and really suits the extra energy which the other three bring to the tracks. There is an insistent and maddening circular motif on “Cause” that splinters with bursts of unexpected guitar. In fact, the guitar sound here is a light shining on an otherwise dark panorama, lending a touch of West Coast as we “watch the sun sink on a world on the brink”. Nothing could be more prescient as the virus craze starts to take over all our waking hours.

The five note siren guitar of “Consequences” contends with the increased tension inflicted by the samples, the torrid drums running like a river of doom all over the bass, desperately trying to anchor the unhinged activities. At one point Spencer keeps yelling ‘”human machine”, but I have lost track of where we are in the album as it becomes a torrential attack. I am reminded of The Warriors, the New York street gang attempting to make their way back home through the city streets, always with a response to anyone that may cross their paths. As Coleman ups the ante on the final track, the samples grow wild, painting a vivid, fluorescent backdrop for the gargantuan rhythm section. The howling vocals and flayed guitar skinning itself across the top is just the icing on a punishing cake.

This is a real master-class in what New York guitar bands have been doing for the last forty years. It pushes that sound a little further on, and with the involvement of Martin Bisi in places, also is redolent of the post-industrial past. It is dirty and savage yet ebullient and panoramic, and I for one would have it no other way. Here’s to a tour in the near future, because this would raise the roof.

-Mr Olivetti-