Leviathan - Massive Conspiracy Against All Life

Old hat: Creedence Clearwater Revival founded a career on repetition. Drop the stones. They’re far from the sole guilty party. Music—all music—repeats itself. To this mind, only Mayo Thompson managed to grab the git-ur and five-finger some songs together without hooks, without bridges, without an out. Shit just slipped fast and free towards the light of exit, no different than a plate of chilaquiles eaten on a belly of all night beerin’. Wrest ain’t spread as thinly as Mr. Thompson. To his credit, he’s tried things. Rattled the ol’ ad hoc against the wall. Waited to see if a sound sounded back. He mined the realm ambient. He took on Tom G. Warrior’s sainted substance until the blind taste test rate registered nil. Still, same sounds circulated; the fortunate son sought solace via other monikers; his “underground” status stymied within a root system frustrated with all the attention from the outside world.

Now comes Massive Conspiracy Against All Life, a not so subtle statement of contempt washed in pissy hissy psychedelia and fitted with that same slithering Amityville Horror Haus vox. Tom G. Warrior moments are few and far between. The Make a Change: Kill Yrself sentiment is as ham-fisted as ever, and there’s enough progression/digression compositional flair to keep your inner Tool fan in gallons of contemplative drool re: Wrest’s FX rack. In nuce: It’s a difficult listen. You wonder what the use is for music founded on uselessness, preaching the indefatigable void alignment, begging for ultimate loss, despair without equal. It ain’t akin to puttin’ on Motorhead at the honky tonk; it’s not supposed to be.

Just a few years ago, I regrettably recall just flat out banging the trouser snake over this stuff. Howl Mockery at the Cross; The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide; Tentacles of Horror, demos XYZ et fuckin alia: I reveled in it. The guitar? Majestic, toothy. Fierce and lush. Some—or most—of the melodies: elegiac, brooding. I was bought and sold and couldn’t wait to shell out more green for more of the same. And it acquiesced. Some of it changed. Some of it didn’t. Some of it tried the Thompson route less traveled and fucked up the formula. I can’t blame the guy for not giving me what I want, i.e. the same ol’ shit, and then deride him for doing just that: giving me the same ol’ shit with new improved atrophied artistic vision. Yup. Cruise control. Stone kold driftah. Perhaps it’s time to resurrect the DJ Shadow gone Goth variety show that is Lurker of Chalice. Could be ripe for collaboration, or prodded to accumulate another pseudonym? Whatever the choice, it’s best to recognize the vein tapped out before the kidz convene a Leviathan LP burning fest. I’ll join in; I burned my Creedence LPs, too. Who goes first? Rocks, scissors, paper.

[Stewart Voegtlin]

type: reviews    keywords: black metal, creedence,   

• Posted by evan on Jun 04, 2008 at 7:49 AM
  
  Great review, and am glad someone's calling them out on this tripe. I'm a fan of the one-man bm "thing" - Striborg, Wrath of the Weak, Xasthur, Nortt, Zarach'baal'Tharagh (man, did I spell that correctly?) - but the formula is beginning to wear thin. Leviathan had the scary, isolated lo-fi thing down a few years ago, but this album tries to hard to either a) live up to the past or b) "progress". It seems to me "progress" is the last thing bm should be about. No doubt this Leviathan album will be hailed as the best bm album of 2008 by the hipster-metallers, but for my money, Lugubrum's "Albino de Congo" is what they all should be listening to this year.
  
  
• Posted by Stew V. on Jun 05, 2008 at 7:10 AM
  
  Yeah, I would imagine the white belts will be all over this at years end... Thankfully, there's Lugubrum offering a much needed counterpoint. Thanks for reading, Evan.
  
  
• Posted by Hammer Smashed Jazz on Jul 05, 2008 at 6:33 PM
  
  Wow,awesome review.I don't care to hear how any record is "so much this" or "so much that".How bout "Is it good?"
  
  More often than not Leviathan's records are NOT good.A great track here or there,but way too much filler.
  
  Thanx for calling it like it is.
  
  

 

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