Review Summary: Iceberg.
From a solely musical standpoint, Profligate’s new album is fantastic. Everything just
works so well - like the grating undercurrent of noise on ‘A Circle Of’ or the mesmerizing synth leads of ‘Enlist’, for instance. Textures pinball off one another or hum ominously in the background, which develops the album’s austere, uncomfortable atmosphere that it pulls off with ease. There’s little doubt in my mind that Noah Anthony is very good at producing bleak, noisy music.
Unfortunately, this atmosphere is also
Somewhere Else’s greatest flaw. It is so committed to its harsh, unyielding aesthetic that it begins to feel one-dimensional through its already brief runtime. Make no mistake, Anthony is indeed a quietly angry man - lines like
”I saw your son today / that little shit today” prove that if nothing else. An undercurrent of subtle hostility is present in even the album’s more sublime moments, mainly thanks to Anthony’s hushed, monotone delivery. The addition of female vocals from Elaine Kahn, while beautiful and soothing on their own, become marginally less so when immersed in Anthony’s bleak instrumentals. It’s clear that this is not meant to be a pleasant experience, and, as one might expect, the album’s replay value suffers as a result.
I won’t say that this is one of the angriest albums I’ve ever heard, or the noisiest or the harshest or even the “adjective”-est. It’s an album wholeheartedly devoted to its aesthetic, for better or for worse. It’s an album that should be talked about, but I don’t think it is one that can be loved, at least in the conventional sense.
