Sunday 7 January 2018

We Are Fucked - Flesh Eating Foundation

Lets not beat around the bush here, the three-piece industrial collective that is the Flesh Eating Foundation are not in a happy mode in this new album. They are most clearly fucked off, and they want to make music that reflects this. Whilst they have retained some of the beats and groove that were ever present in their previous releases, this time the sound is bigger, the crushing distortion is more encompassing, and the urgency of things just being fucked are more present than ever before. This is not a fun album, this is a collection of angry thoughts and violent noises ejected out to share the hurt. Which is a long way of saying "this is bloody good stuff."

It's also a fairly experimental album, with a lot more variety in sound and approach than previous offerings. Tempos, themes, densities, and just what can be done to a soundboard to make it cry, are all played around with in varying forms of gay abandon. Not only are you not going to get bored at any point, you are also not going to get used to the punishment being hammered into your ears. Sounds as diverse as digital hardcore, aggrotech, and even ambient noise are all at play here, meaning that there is likely to be something for everyone (assuming its an everyone who likes a bit of a hellscape). This is the sound of a band isn't worried about having a specific sound, but determined to just go with an emotional backdrop tone and see how many directions that can take them.

Stand out tracks, at least to these ears, include the jackhammer direct, and probably most dancefloor friendly title track "We Are Fucked", the bad acid nightmare of "Punch Drunk", the stark, Cronenburgesque, "Futurelast", and the brutalist poetic rush of "Stand Up And Be Discounted". But pick any of the songs and you'll be happy with the results, or at least smiling once you've been rinsed out by it, and the diversity of it all shows that there is still more to come out of the Flesh Eating Foundation stable. Even if it might want to punch you in the head at first sight.

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