Benjamin John Power may be better known for his work with Andrew Hung as F*** Buttons. F*** Buttons specializes in a mix of euphoric, meditative electronic music coupled with the intensity of electronic noise music.
Like much of F*** Button’s work, Blanck Mass’ World Eater definitely straddles the line between melodic and meditative on one hand, and intense and noisy on the other. However, the album seems to alternate between more noisy tracks and more melodic tracks.
“Rhesus Negative” is an intense, fast-paced, hallucination-inducing trip of industrial noise, but with some respite via an arpeggiated chord progression that pops up a couple of times. Likewise, “Rat” starts out rather intensely with a pounding beat and accompanying noise, but some repetitive keyboard lines throughout the song subdue that intensity.
On the other hand are tracks like “Please”, “Silent Treatment”, and “Hive Mind” are beat-driven, more melodic, but at the same time are a little dark or foreboding. The aforementioned tracks almost immediately reminded of witch house artists like Holy Other, oOoOO, and Salem.
Despite the intimidating album title and cover, the music isn’t nearly as dark as one might be expecting. However, there is a quality in many of these songs that seems to be a plea for absolution, as if asking forgiveness for some wrongdoing. The album description reads that “[we] understand our hard-wired primal urges & why they exist in an evolutionary sense” and that “we should be able to recognize these genetic hangovers & control them”, but “[unfortunately], this isn’t the case. Recent global events prove this. The human race is consuming itself.” This may be what the plea for absolution is referring to: our collective guilt for the world’s current state of affairs. We are the world eater.
Recommended If You Like: F*** Buttons, Andrew Hung, Holy Other, oOoOO, Salem, HEALTH, Ben Frost, Emptyset, Haxan Cloak
Recommended Tracks: 3 (Please), 5 (Silent Treatment), 7 (Hive Mind) for Breakfast for Beatlovers, 2 (Rhesus Negative) and 4 (Rat) for noisier sets
Do Not Play: avoid 6 (Minnesota/Eas Fors/Naked) unless you’re doing an ambient/noise/drone set and 1 (John Doe’s Carnival of Errors) as it’s basically an intro
Written by Josh Gaston on 04/11/2017