Review Summary: ṫ̵̡̧̤͆͂h̵̗̮̋̓ǐ̵͍̻̳̈́̅s̸̯̩͂ ̶̻̯͖̍i̸̜̼̜͆͌̑s̶̼͓̤̅ ̸̥͎̲̇̍f̴̦̠̟̕i̴͔͌́͜n̸̞̤̹̈́͛̽ȅ̷̯̭̪̂
Hey,
NEWSFLASH: the world is on fire. See that thing outside the window? [a moment for the reader to gander outside the window] That there is on fire. You can trust me on this, cause if it ain’t the world itself heating up and burning down, I may have set that thing ablaze my own damn self. Gezan told me to. Their counterproductive messages like „Fight War Not Wars“, and anti-positivist narratives of disobedience, both civil and moral, is just about the most brazen, cacophanous statement of distress this year of our demented lord. Definitively twisted, calling for revolution both in its words and through its inventive sound and structural techniques. And also it calls for arson, with which I am more than happy to comply.
You like your music sophisticated, clean, complex, professional? Well, eat *** and die, cause Gezan ain’t interested in that. You will get complexity, but it mainly comes from the onslaught of instruments, each frantically blasting over the other as if trying to settle a personal one-sided deathmatch. Over this chaos, a nasally sadistic announcer’s voice comes over the speakers to declare a war on the material world, while the fighters immaterialise each other into bloody puddles below. Your popcorn is not the best, but you had a coupon, so it ain’t too big a shame, and
WATCH OUT a chair flies over your head. Damn that was close. The announcer confusingly remarks on the positives of being a dog, the joys of biting humans, briefly turns philosophical, calls himself „誅犬“ aka Chuken, the Death Penalty Dog. Four minutes in, the swelling of the instruments only compares to the swelling of your ears by now.
The announcer keeps contradicting himself, first he spoke of being a dog, now it is a cat missing a leg, paving a trail for rats to run. It is perhaps a metaphor of an inherently decrepit organ starting a system for some completely different individuals who like a mass start following it without realizing that such a path can have alternatives built better suited for them? What do I know, look, ANOTHER CHAIR. Shucks, one of the players dropped dead. His cello halfway up his arse, the bow down through the throat, the two meeting in the middle. How’d that even fit inside? Regardless, a new gladiator entered the ring. Average survival time is now 2 minutes. Some poor soul from inside the ring shouts “We Can’t Take It Anymore.” Sure you can. Here you go taking it again. What are you going to do, complain to the manager? The announcer proclaims himself great or something to the matter. Should have expected the announcer to be an egomaniac, the whole thing is, after all, titled “Anochi”, meaning the biblical proclamation of “𝕴 𝕬𝕸”. Who titles a death rally like that?
Shouts of “We All Fall” erupt. I sure hope not, I paid for the tickets in the higher seats, wouldn’t want to downgrade. Oh no, they’re dragging away most instruments, releasing the electronic dogs. The bass armada drowns the arena. One brave sax fights them off. What a sight. It builds and builds, echoic solos inbound, the sax slowly getting taken over, but never giving in. Why is it suddenly so hot in here? Who bolted the windows shut? Intermission now, gonna go get some air. Folks around me talking robotically. Weird. Gotta look up what “Tokyo Dub Story” means. They are all talking about it.
The break ends and the announcer starts chanting, folks join in. I was not informed I am supposed to memorise a routine. Why am I left out? He gets philosophical. The fighters are now in unity, playing together, the crowds sings along. All very melodic and touching.
L I G H T S O U T ! How did this happen? Everyone turned into birds suddenly and started chirping just as the lights went out. Am I a bird? “We Were the World” indeed. Perhaps a critique of failed efforts to save our planet after the age of “We Are the World” charity bull***, when humanity agreed to help each other and did jack *** for it. Perhaps. How would I know, I may be a bird right now.
This whole set starts feeling more contemplative. Everyone is joining in unity and love. Everybody is smiling suddenly. There’s a guy who got cut in half he still be waving from both sides of the room. Was the message of unity the core all along? Did they purposefully beat the living d i c k s out of each other to make a point? Only after leaving behind marginal differences imposed upon us by the ruling bourgeoisie faceless corporate class can we truly find peace, while simultaneously using the unity and inner peace for gathering pitchforks and revolting against the very system that puts us constantly into position of self-oppression and illusion of choice of subpar service and product we are still forced to pay for with our labour and fake monetary construct.
All-in-all, perhaps the most fun socialist revolutionary manifesto party I’ve ever been to this year. At every turn lies a lyric reflecting on overreliance of consumerism-providers, the greed that ruined the planet, as well as the humans inhabiting it. At every turn, also, the musical palette seeks to bait and switch the expected structural norms. There strings up a lead-up, perhaps by conventional means like a guitar lick, a percussion tempo-setter, or a vocal intro, which then promptly leads to at least a fiver of variations of the thing serving complete dissemination. Eventually, the whole damn thing obtains a bizarrely positive structure instead of devolving like at the start into infighting like a Scot and an Irishman comparing who hates the Sassenachs more.
Speaking of Scots and the like, I wonder what had happened to the bagpiper introing the whole event…
