Review Summary: Even more screaming than you’d think
I know it’s almost certainly not the case, but
Objects Without Pain sure feels like (post-)metalcore’s answer to the filthy tour-de-screm, and current AOTY frontrunner,
The Lamb As Effigy. Artists from different spheres seldom engage in that direct or immediate of a dialogue, at least not as much as us music dorks enjoy speculating that they might, but the similarities between
Sprain’s 2023 opus and
Great Falls’ attempt at the same are, nonetheless, intriguing. This, too, is a winding hellscape of knotty, clanging,
deth, expressed through dissonance + feedback + other loud things; the individual components utilised do, however, vary. The well-weathered chaps at the helm splatter blood on canvas via the bassy, metallic heft of an
Admiral Angry or
Botch, while also revelling in the bleak-eerie aesthetic recently championed by the likes of
Chat Pile and, uh,
Sprain! Through their mangled collation of influences, and near immaculate execution thereof, this Seattle noise rock trio have delivered a deathly sleeper hit for the ages.
Back to the chaps: the primal movers and shakers here are all 90s/00s metalcore veterans - see
recommended by reviewer - and, clearly, are able/willing to apply their decades of elbow grease liberally in order to achieve maximal sonic horror. Creepy crawly opener, “Dragged Home Alive”, has the full deets: sparse nightmare chords plucked sporadically, quietly,
dreadfully, before the BOOM of the BASS and the TSUNAMI of the SCREM, its tense atmosphere collapsing into pure fucking chaos. The THICC noise wall that results is RIDONC, packing the sludgy punch of twelve small volcanoes and setting the world ablaze in the process. Within the magma, the pained yelps of front-man Demain Johnson roar on, fighting fire with fire for nine exhilarating minutes of vitriol and despair. Space to breathe is not for sale, apparently, and continues to be denied on the hefty noisecore beatdowns that follow. Both “Trap Feeding” and “Born As An Argument” refuse to relent, piling tangled, spidery riffs atop tortured, mathy drumwork atop yet more deathcries and more deathcries and oh god, oh god, oh god, there’s even more screaming than you’d think.
It’s a genuinely exhausting space to inhabit, as was (it seems) the intent. It may not look like it, hot ash and hellfire and all, but
Objects Without Pain is actually a breakup album, soundtracking the feeling before, during and after the decision to end a lifelong partnership. The anger is evident, as is the regret, such is the duality of divorce.
A deluge of broken promises and resultant resentment seeps outwards - fuzz, scuzz and filth punctuating the motions throughout the remainder of the record - until the thirteen-minute death-dirge of “Thrown Against The Waves” blows the whole thing to heck. The closer is a monstrous, bittersweet
fuck you, spat out via hulking distortion and an almost post metal commitment to terror via space, texture and, uh,
noise. In addition to a harrowing record coda and potential artistic peak for the band, it makes a damn good case for itself as one of the most affecting statements on love-loss that the entire genre has seen since
Jane hecking
Doe (yes it’s hyperbole but i’m excited heck off).
Back to that reductive (but hopefully very clickbait-y) comparison: although
The Lamb As Effigy was probably the more ambitious and impressive LP,
Objects Without Pain has nonetheless won my affection for how damn well it achieves equivalent catharsis via slightly more concise, chunky monkey means. It is huge, nasty and well-deserving of a place atop the mantelpiece of 2023. See for yourself. Just make sure to let the right one in.
