Review Summary: ...and with it, this album.
There is a particular popular internet meme that has been circling for at least a couple years now that I feel perfectly sums up the existence of Psychosexual. It's a meme that's a spin on a recurring false reassurance from people's mothers everywhere; at one point in your childhood, you asked your mother on your way home from hockey practice/piano lessons/karate/whatever if you could stop and get food from McDonald's, to which she'd respond, "we have food at home". Obviously that answer pissed you off, because McDonald's had to have been the best thing ever to you as a kid, and a simple Peri-peri chicken breast with wild rice and some corn on the side obviously wasn't in line with your definition of the perfect meal. It's a meme that is so stupid that it's almost perfect; the most common variants I've seen of it talk about movies and music. Why I do I think this fits Psychosexual so well? Well, you know that other Satanic themed rock band who wears masks and makeup, Ghost, right? And how much of a thing they became over the course of the 2010s? There is no easier target for a "Ghost at home" than Jeremy Spencer's kick at the can. Sure, we can talk about other bands like Twin Temple and Hazelmaze that try so embarrassingly hard to make Satanic music cool again (both have albums I plan on reviewing in the near future, and they ain't gonna be pretty), but not only is Spencer no Tobias Forge, he's no Satan himself either.
Hell, while we're still on the topic of memes, how Psychosexual became a thing is quite a meme in and of itself. Jeremy Spencer quit his day job at drumming for Five Finger Death Punch to become a police officer. Obviously that didn't compare to music, but clearly Death Punch were more successful without him, so he looked to the bigger end of mainstream metal- classic influenced Satanic themed metal. Now, Psychosexual isn't the only project he's formed under this guise, the frontman Devil Daddy (Spencer's alias for this project) also has a solo project, full of equally cringe worthy synthpop. And boy, don't think I'm about to stop bringing up memes or Ghost any time soon, because listening to all thirty plus minutes of
Torch the Faith made me wonder if I somehow woke up in an alternate dimension of some sort. Not the good one, where Neil Peart hasn't died, there's no racism and there's no coronavirus, but one that feels we're stuck in the universe of HBO's
Watchmen miniseries or that Doom Patrol show. Only much, MUCH weirder.
it's quite clear from the get go that this album only exists for two reasons: the first being to become the Judas Priest to Ghost's Iron Maiden, and to try to keep a subgenre of metal going that should have only EVER been a one time deal. In fact, the former seems to be the more egregious of the two: opening track "Baby on Fire" feels like a mockbuster "Square Hammer" and "I Want to Be the Blood in Your Cut" feels so much like a bootleg "See the Light" that it was almost impossible not to picture Tobias Forge sitting by the phone, ready to sic his lawyer on Spencer's ass. On the other hand, the latter is what truly sets Psychosexual apart from all the other lame ass bands trying to keep this dying genre alight. There are exactly three lyrical topics at play here: hardcore sex, how hArDcOrE Satanism is, and satanic love aongs. And admittedly, this album is at its most enjoyable when it's trying to seem so edgy that it entertainingly fails at it. "Let the Sin Begin" is probably the song that does this the most; it's hard not to imagine Spencer thinking he was bringing back the late 90s and Marilyn Manson with lyrics like "Let the Sin begin, I'll be ***ing you on fire like you've never been", "Would you like to take a little pill, one that leads to bigger thrills", and its Industrial metal backing doesn't help. it's the perfect meme, almost. Don't be surprised either that Facebook page Catatonicyouths has it already turned it into one.
The problem? Unfortunately the moments where this album is so bad that can be enjoyed on an ironic level are so few and far between. The rest of the album goes back and forth between boring ballads ("I Wanna Be the Blood... " and "Cut Me Up" happening back to back hardly help), shameless Ghost ripoffs, and mid tempo clunkers that sound exactly the same as what came before it. And it's hardly the music either; we get there mid tempo clunkers about violent sex
in a row ("I Bite", "Lips Turn Blue" and "Tearing You Apart"), and the only thing that separates the third apart from the others is its extra long intro. The extra long intro that is literally HALF THE TUNE. Spencer's absolutely terrible presence in this album really doesn't help things either; he's far from what I would call a bad singer, but unfortunately he's a fourth rate Peter Steele impersonator that at best has no personality, and at worst, conjures images of South Park's version of Satan. When you front a project and play a character to do so, it implies that you want the character to be the point of focus. And Spencer feels like such a background character on his project that it makes you wonder why he even bothers.
In fact, that's why Psychosexual is such a black void. It's something that I want to bring myself to be able to make fun of, to listen to for a laugh. This is an album that I want to be able to play to a room full of drunk friends, and lose our collective *** to. But it's none of those. It's a meme. Not even a good meme, either. And like all memes, it eventually loses joy and dies. The problem is, memes like the "food at home" meme are still thriving because of how applicable it is. The only thing that can be applied to any form of this "Devil Daddy" performance art is that by the time album closer "What Doesn't Kill Me (Better Start Running)" finishes, you'll be sure to agree with it - if the sheer boredom this experience has put you through hasn't killed you, then Jeremy Spencer himself better start running, and take his cringe worthy Devil Daddy persona with him.
