Review Summary: A story of emptying fields and knotted bare trees that twist through the windshield as the drive moves to it's final destination.
This was probably close to 8 years ago. I was sitting in the passenger seat next to one my friends who I have since had a falling out from. As we drove twilight was quickly descending onto the desolate winter western Massachusetts's mounds and valleys. During this drive we listened to Greymachine's Disconnected and we knew that our connection was coming to a close. It's a strange thing when you can connect with music from a moment in time that you were listening to it. For myself, this album is the perfect encapsulation of the alienation and self loathing that slowly burn and wreak havoc on the human psyche. Disconnected allows listeners to experience this all in one hour. From the start we are laden with intense almost lo fi atmosphere that feels ancient even with the many electronic noises. Wolf at the Door is sinister and evil. It sets the mood perfectly for the action that is too come later with tracks like Vultures Descend and Wasted. While there is hatred sewed deep within this album as whole, we need some justification for how this hatred came to be.
I had just left the farm and was now being driven back to continue my studies for my undergraduate degree. The farm my friend was living and working while he finished his contract only had heat in one room where a wood burning stove was located. The man who owned the house smoked inside. The house felt incredibly empty, bare but efficient in how it rant. He would've put a foot through anyone who disobeyed him. We were forced to stay in the attic where the winds howled all night and the haunted atmosphere of the Massachusetts's farmland descended into our dreams.
This is where the action comes into play. Vulture's Descend is an epic song but it lacks it's own ego, disassociated and experiencing the hatred inwardly. The riffs come in badass as ever and are punctuated by ringing noise and switch with more ambient tones repeating through the entire song. I knew I had to leave this place and I knew my friend wanted to invade where I lived. This wolf did not come bearing gifts but instead had an insatiable hunger. His life had become so separate from my own, he wanted to work his way back to what he had left behind all those years ago but had inexplicably found himself on a different path.
The next tracks are less experimental but still serve to combine the more focused elements of sludge metal with intermittent abstract passages that help give some breathing space from Greymachine. Nothing here feels distant, the sounds are all close to the psyche but it really isn't until we reach Sweatshop that the experimentation kicks itself up a notch with a hypnotic groove underneath screaming, drums that send jolting shocks through the listener, and sound loops that help connect it to the rest of the albums more psychedelic atmosphere. This is the strange thing about Disconnected. It is an extraordinarily heavy album but there is also this psychedelic element that expands upon the deeply unsettling emotions and demonstrates the way they can manifest into a primal fountain of energy. The repetitious parts here feel meditative and the final track (minus remixes) Easy Pickings really helps to flesh out this smaller moments in the album into a long segment that leaves the listener feel fulfilled.
It was difficult to process how someone I used to share such a strong bond, that relationship, it now felt empty. Once I recognized this I oriented myself differently I feel. Something in me changed, I was more sure of my own boundaries, not letting circumstance get the better of me and choosing a path that satisfied my own life. This journey is what Disconnected means for me. It is a sonic representation of this journey and although this album is not perfect, it still demonstrates an important facet of modern music listening which is that even the heavy, evil and unsettling sounds have the ability to become deeply personal.
