Review Summary: Misanthropic music from a self-destructive world
JG Thirlwell is a madman. He’s a musical genius, and an evil one at that. His main project,
Foetus, is one of the most incredible bands of our generation. However, it’s a band that is sure to anger and/or confuse many. The music is a bizarre mix of pop, funk, noise, industrial, and any other musical genre known to exist, and the lyrical themes are nothing short of upsetting. By the mid 1980’s, Foetus progressed from being a silly, over-the-top musical project to a scathing, explosive experimental act that strikes fear into the hearts of many listeners.
Nail, the fourth Foetus record, cumulates the many different tones and themes of previous releases, resulting into a massive, throbbing monster of an album that eats away every bone of your body, leaving behind absolutely nothing.
Nail appears almost to be a conceptual album; themes of greed, needless cruelty, and the destruction of human society are very much present throughout the album. The presence of these subjects are heavy, so much so that Thirlwell’s voice feels more brash and controlling than usual, or maybe it’s just because of the album’s superb production. Seriously, this album sounds incredibly fresh, even by today’s standards. The album sounds as if it were being performed by a million musicians right in front of you, it’s that good.
As mentioned earlier, Thirlwell’s performance is much more intense on this record than on other Foetus albums. Hell, he sounds down right bloodthirsty on “Pigswill”. His gut wrenching growl
“destroy all girls!” are enough to make give you goosebumps, and the seething rage in his voice as he sings
“pigs will fly with blood tonight” makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The mechanical, disjointed drum looping on the track only adds to the chaos, building up to an unapologetically destructive conclusion. The track “DI-1-9026” is very similar to “Pigswill”, but is, lyrically, the exact opposite, instead detailing the gruesome murder of the “pigs”.
“Slit their soft underbellies, let them know who's boss!” Thirlwell barks with absolute wrath in his voice. Much like “Pigswill”, the music on “DI-1-9026” is severely intense; each instrument screeches at a blistering speed, boiling down to an explosive end that leaves you speechless; confused and wondering what the fu
ck just happened.
Besides those violent, disorderly epics,
Nail contains some of his most bleak material. The track “Enter the Exterminator” is almost indescribable: it’s a song about the ultimate abuse of power: Genocide. The song details the lives of those who were kidnapped from their homes and are forced to stay locked up in concentration camps, waiting for their own cruel and unjustifiable deaths. The track feels almost like a sound collage musically: the music simply consists of noises such as the scratching of metal, the creaking of doors, gun shots, machine noises, and so on. The use of a heart beat for a back beat successfully gives off a sense of fear and paranoia to the listener, and the cries of babies carefully hidden in the background is nothing short of heart breaking. In this track, instead of singing traditionally, JG simply whispers, however he does so in a stone-cold voice. His quiet muttering of
“Waiting becomes torture/When distractions become bliss” reveals how truly hopeless the situation is, sucking the life away from you the more you listen.
Nail is an album that reveals the faults of humanity, from greed, power abuse, murder, and so on. It’s an album with quite the build-up, becoming more and more gruesome with every tick of the clock. Boiling like a pan of water on a stove,
Nail reaches to “Private War”, a noise collage composed of metallic grinding noises. It’s an awkward listen at first; Being placed right after “The Overture of Pigdom Come”, an uplifting orchestra-influenced instrumental, “Private War” sort of ruins the flow of the album. However, just as soon as the track gets overly crowded with noise, it quickly ends and shifts to the final track, “Anything (Viva!)”, which begins with a nasty guitar riff. The riff, while not massive and heavy enough to please most metal fans, is unnerving. The droning strums echo through your headphones and chips away your hopes for a happy ending. Thirlwell, simply put it, sounds cold on this track. No, he doesn’t sound evil, angry, or even disappointed; He sounds cold. He sounds like he’s lost all faith in the people who surrounds him. While the lyrics
“Fee fi fo fum/It takes two to tangle, it takes one to come” sound incredibly silly on paper, JG’s delivery and performance make them sound like a death threat.
For almost two minutes, the listener is practically strangled by Thirlwell’s confrontational verbal assault.
“You start to admire the flagrant disregard/For the sanctity of other people’s lives/By the filthy few in positions of power” he rants with pure disgust in his voice. At this point, it sounds as if he’s the hero; It sounds as if he’s the noble, pure-hearted citizen who’s going to stand up against the corrupted and set society in the right path. It sounds like a heroic song that is supposed to inspire, which makes the lyrics
“When the time runs out/When the money runs out/I can do any goddamn thing I want” all the more devastating. What comes next are gruesome images of power abuse,
“Power makes pain so where a rhino hide/If you see a white flash you better cover your eyes” sneers Thirlwell. After a few minutes, the guitars stop, instead being replaced by a frantic orchestral backed up with strong drum beats, which builds up to the overwhelming chanting of
“I CAN DO ANY GODDAMN THING I WANT”, which sounds like it was being performed by an entire army. “Anything (Viva!)” is one of the most devastating things Foetus has ever done, its the kind of song that leaves you completely empty once it ends.
Nail is one of the first true classic albums by Foetus, while some of the instrumental segue tracks are, admittedly, useless, it doesn’t stop the fact that
Nail is an incredibly great record. The production is pitch-perfect, and the performance is nothing short of beautiful. Nail is one of those albums that leaves you silent once it ends. It’s a deafening silence, the kind that leaves you in the dark, scared. The only sound that’s being made is the intense ringing in your ears. This is misanthropic music from a self-destructive world, highly recommended.
