Review Summary: Such a hateful noise
Kristen Hayter's deeply disquieting classically-infused industrial brand of music is a thing of beauty. That it is uncomfortable, discordant, even horrific at times is undeniable, yet it is always disconcertingly majestic and exceedingly deep, both in lyricism and the broad sweeps with which it daubs the aural landscape. The multi-faceted tapestry of her music has always served as a revealing portrait and a therapeutic atonement for the performer, influenced in no small part by a religious upbringing that has led her to view live performances as a sermon of sorts. This undercurrent of transcendent energy pervades her artistic output; gorgeous and awe-inspiring, violent and imposing. Releasing months before the sublime, haunting masterpiece SINNER GET READY, Agnus Dei is a four-track EP cut from the same tumultuous cloth of Hayter's previous releases, but has considerably more in common with the operatic aesthetic of her then-upcoming full-length than with the dissonant noise machine of preceding release, Caligula. Nonetheless, the drapery-thick orchestration and halting, piercing vocals are unmistakeably Hayter's own, and the addition of some well-realised covers make this a venture well worth taking both for the converted and unbelievers alike.
Spoken-word excerpts and baroque musicality pervade the release, with industrial cladding to line the instrumental structures. 'IN TONGUES' and 'WHERE'ER YOU WALK' give way to a cavernous feedback that envelope all surrounding melody, almost as a metaphor for the artist's own intentions and personal symbolism within her music, as relating to personal psychological turmoil. The cold soprano tones of Hayter's voice appears to both wail against and coincide with the jarring industrial motifs throughout, crafting a notable discord that feels balanced in a captivatingly disquieting way. The title track, a re-imagined piece by Bach, allows the sombre opulence of the singer's vocal range to fully take wing amidst a less-busy sonic landscape, but is still offset by scraping industrial tics that threaten to overwhelm the lone voice like a slowly approaching thunderstorm. It emerges, rolls, and recedes before re-emerging like a towering spectre. It lays in wait, sinister and deadly, swallowing textures and nullifying instrumentation into static, even as Hayter's voice seems to plead forlornly against the impending horror. The cover of Iron Lung's SEXLESS // NO SEX, aside from being an interesting choice of song to record, is an utterly devastating version of the powerviolence original, utilising heavy static and abrasive piano-wire scraping to encapsulate the dread and stricken sense of grief that Hayter distils from the original. Much like her cover of Dolly Parton's 'Jolene', she again demonstrates an innate flair for capturing and honing in on the troubling emotionality that sits beneath the surface of comparatively lively recordings, and allowing it to unfold in an organic, meaningful way.
As brief as the EP is, it is still an incredibly rounded showcase of Hayter's songwriting prowess, displaying aptitude for her own brand of industrial noise, along with her methodology in granting a new lease of life for non-original pieces by invoking her own signature blend within them. Much like her more longform recordings, it bores into the brain like water-torture, its patterns more erratic and unpredictable by the second. Although it does conclude before it is able to fully weave itself into the power groove exhibited by Hayter's albums, it manages to offer enough contained hysteria to whet the appetite, and it serves exceptionally well as an expansion to what would later materialise as SINNER GET READY. For all its rich, poetic lyricism and dense industrial sensibility, Agnus Dei is a remarkable display of what is, at its a core, a heartfelt and earnest artist baring her soul for all who would listen, and this vulnerability and rapturous emotional tithe are offered to all with stomach enough for the beauty and horrors that lurk within. Amen.
