Review Summary: SEE THAT TOASTER OVER THERE!? I'M GONNA FUCK IT.
Whitehouse do as Whitehouse do.
That's about the best statement that can be made about the Power Electronics outfit by William Bennett. Regardless of whether they change their style or keep trudging along with the same thing they've done before; Whitehouse does as Whitehouse does. It had been three years since William redefined his own catalog with
Birdseed, and that album's reputation made making
Asceticists 2006 all the more difficult. How do you outdo something to the level of
Birdseed？ Do you go back to your old ways; do you explore new horizons; or do you attempt to improve upon the original template？
Asceticists 2006 was William basically saying "Fuck it! Let's just stick our dicks in it and hope for the best." And stick his dick in it he did. Was it a success？ Yes. Did it outdo
Birdseed？ Hell no.
Of course, you can't go over a Whitehouse album without talking about the tracks that work. My personal favorite track has to be
Ruthless babysitting, with William returning to the trademark screaming with what I like to call the "H Triple B" or "Heavy Bass Boost Beats". Of course William uses this technique almost religiously in
Asceticists, making rounds in other tracks like
Dans and
Language Recovery. This is where we come to the first pitfall of the album, the repetition is obnoxious and not in a good way. Most of the tracks feel the same every time and, although they are all quality tracks, for a lot of Whitehouse fans it can become boring about halfway through the album.
Is this prevalent in every track？ No. One of the biggest examples of this is
Nzambi la Lufua, a two and a half minute track the features an extended feedback noise almost as if a train was recorded, distorted, and then played back slowly. It can really screw around with the head and is a great halfway point for the album; a way to reinvigorate a fan if they got bored over the repetition.
Dumping the Fuccking Rubbish repeats the fast paced, H Triple B style of
Why You Never Became a Dancer, utilizing that signature style without just becoming an outright mimic of the whole damn thing.
In the end
Asceticists 2006 was caught between a rock and a hard place while having a nasty kidney stone. It didn't know whether it wanted to stay where it was, go back to the past, or progress towards the future; so it attempted to do all three. It isn't a bad album, it's great; but Whitehouse has passed great at this point. Noise is not a genre that permits mediocre output. This isn't like regular music where, even if it is bad, you can still make it popular cause it's catchy. Noise doesn't have the luxury of commercial success and never will, and because of that it consistently demands the absolute best of it's performers. With that said,
Asceticists 2006 is a great album, but that is not enough for Whitehouse at this point.
