Review Summary: Bacon Turns Inside You
I was a late bloomer. Ideas of love didn’t invade my noggin until I was already woven deep within the throes of Super Smash Bros. Melee (for the Nintendo Gamecube) and other gratuitous addictions, and my lack of coherence due to all the hours spent isolated and cold prevented me from ever truly exuding inner affections in a meaningful way. Sally had my heart until I got home from school and lost all semblance of honest sobriety to the unrelenting grip of F-smashing ‘puff mains til I couldn’t feel my fingers. Heather was the apple of my eye when my eyes weren’t fixated on styling with Falcon. Irrespective of my distractions, I still had a fleeting, cursory knowledge regarding my idea of what it meant to be in love. This frail understanding was violently torn to pieces in coming years, but XXX Maniak has managed to remind me of my younger mindset with just a few riffs and twenty minutes of my time.
The subtle timidity that underpins a goregrind-driven persona worn by XXX Maniak in this album didn’t resonate with me until the start of the third track, “Baconbortion”.
”I’m gonna shove this bottle up your ass / Is that what you want？ / I’m gonna shove it up your ass!”
Don’t blink or you’ll miss it. There is power in the quiet;
is that what you want？ Was Super Smash Bros. Melee (for the Nintendo Gamecube) really what I wanted？ My love was persistently distracted. The nonsensical shrieking in “Catholic Bacon” emanates this sentiment; a tirade of visceral jibberish overtop abstract rumbling is the perfect auditory descriptor of pursuing love through insatiable cravings. Much in the same light, an audio track of a young couple sharing in the joys of kissing that kicks off
The Moment You Start to Enjoy It, It’ll Get Bacon raises questions regarding blindness to intent. The song’s true meaning ultimately rears its head towards the end of the spoken word segment:
”Listen, he’s gonna *** you in the ass and cum in your mouth.”
Exquisite song structuring be damned; the expertise and tact displayed in the apt sampling and lyricism immediately transported me into the body of gleeful ignorance.
There is a keen eye for musicality strewn throughout
Harvesting the Cunt Nectar. “***ed By Bacon” is not only a decidedly humble showcase of technicality, but it showcases thematic adherence without avoiding wankery. XXX Maniak bridge the gap between overly flashy and gorgeously melodious in a way that teeters on the aphrodisiac while masterfully succumbing to a work ethic devoid of uncharacteristically lackadaisical indifference unintentionally consumed by ineptitude spawned of egregious indolence. Or as my mate Kev would put it, “haha dude that’s sick”. The programmed drums are practically inhuman. The compression abuse only furthers a correlation to the intensity of my emotional response. I can’t help but still marvel at the parallels between my Melee/love dichotomy and the acoustic/verbose duality represented through the goregrind adventure XXX Maniak so skillfully re-enacts.
”(...)which is not exactly castration, but it is quite a dramatic mutilation” opens up the desperately introspective “Bacon In the Shower”. My time spent with Super Smash Bros. Melee (for the Nintendo Gamecube) was not exactly wasted, but it was quite a dramatic shift from societal norms. It was supposedly strange and uncommon to be so uncommitted to the pursuit of love even by the ripe old age of 16. There was desire neither here nor there; physical and emotional response had been nullified by the powers of the Ganondorf down-air. Yet, there were glimmers of passion to be momentarily admired. Love wasn’t out of reach. And no one knows that feeling quite like XXX Maniak. Suitably soiled, I changed my underwear and hit “play” a second time as the tears began to well up in my ducts once more. This was my own “Tangible Expression of Bacon”, and I was none the wiser to the depth of impact such an album could have on my learning soul. I am aptly filled.
