Review Summary: insufficient data for a meaningful answer
Fearsome Engine is sci-fi psych rock for the Umurangi Generation, environmentalists, eco-terrorists, retro-futurists and future-retroists (which might just be hipsters). It’s a debut so defined by the digital singularity that its own title cynically auto-corrects the cyberpunk opuses that inspire the album’s allusions. From the opening track’s march, an oppressive atmosphere immediately grips and refuses to let go. It’s, to play my hand in short form, good, and in slightly longer form, really quite good.
Lyrically, Ripship evolve on the bleak futurescapes of previous EPs, more ambitious in theme and more damning of humanity’s hubris. Not as many tracks have as much overt irreverence as the robot-space-cowboy ditties of old, like “Set to Stun.” Instead, Ripship have brushed a canvas of ecologically damaged dystopia, a world where fighter pilots must pollinate the clouds and trees are a distant memory. Even a track like “Katamari Damashi” subverts the cutesy style of the games in favour of booming, dissonant guitar screeches that amplify the underlying existential horror of their premise. Its themes are noticeably liberal, liberally nihilistic about our futile efforts against entropy, of being an insignificant speck in the grand scheme of the universe – yet surprisingly without collapsing under the weight of itself. It takes delicacy to balance above the precipice of pretentiousness and absurdism, and Ripship constantly toe the line.
What’s more concrete and confident in execution is Ripship’s musical aesthetic, producing a sleek cybernetic sound well beyond what’s expected of a rock duo. Callum Lincoln’s vocaloid baritone and effects-laden riff wizardry systematically contrast alongside Eva-Rae McLean’s unprocessed tenor and acoustic drum sets. Time signatures regularly break the binary mould of pop rockage, regularly trading 0’s and 1’s and 4’s to the floors for 5’s and 7’s without losing mechanical precision. If anything, Ripship perform almost
too mechanically; when a track like “The Spyre” drowns out both the listener and McLean’s plaintive melodies in a sea of bubbling synthesisers, it’s hard to tell what is intended effect and what is by-product. A ‘perfect’ Ripship record may also belie the point of the whole affair, fully succumbing to artificial perfection at the cost of any human element at all. At the same time, what’s present is already so fully-formed that
Fearsome Engine is a succinct artistic launching pad, for both an underexplored niche in its genre and a soon-to-be underappreciated group of artists.
