Review Summary: Possibly the most fun you can have while having your eardrums torn out.
The Faithful Supine, like all of Plague Mother's work and indeed a lot in the noise genre, is a seemingly directionless, confusing listen. By not sticking to conventional musical characteristics (which leads on to the argument of if it is truly music at all), it can be a seemingly fruitless task trying to make sense of it all through understandings of structure - add to this a collection of decidedly inaccessible sounds, and at first listen it hardly seems worth trying. However, once the initial psychological barrier of venturing into the uncomfortable is breached, Plague Mother's second release
The Faithful Supine is one that intrigues as much as is disorientates.
Immediately, it's clear that the EP is by no means an easy listen. Opening with an excruciatingly high sine wave, the title track's 'welcoming statement' is maintained without interruption for almost half a minute. Slowly, small crackles start to emerge from the uncomfortably piercing sound, which only provide little reprieve before erupting eventually into a block of white noise. The usage of white noise is a particularly prominent component throught
The Faithful Supine, although it's rarely an untampered one; across the 5 tracks, it is gnawed through by sharp scratching sounds, complemented with less abrasive, swirling waves, or used as a quiet, menacing undercurrent to pops and scrapes. While largely at its best when being as aurally destructive as possible, the changes present are part of the reason that it's as captivating as it is.
A particularly interesting facet of this noise may not actually be there at all. Every now and then, something that sounds vaguely like a scream or a roar emanates from the mix - however, it can be incredibly difficult to ascertain whether or not it actually was a voice or not. Given either the sudden, staccato nature of its 'usage' or the ultra-heavy layers of distortion placed over the top, the sounds are warped beyond immediate recognition, creating a sort of auditory 'uncanny valley' that is as intriguing as it is unsettling.
However, the most endearing factor of
The Faithful Supine (if endearing can ever be used to describe harsh noise) is in its vagueness. With no volatile message through vocals, no particularly controversial album art and not even a real hint of theme in its title, the listener gets to use their imagination to create their own story, should they wish. This review has been left somewhat vague in parts for that very reason; whether or not the voices were there, or what mental images the contrasts between the shrieking highs and the rumbling lows create, the discoveries that can be made turn it into a vaguely masochistic game of hide and seek. In a peculiar way Plague Mother has made an album which is, as strange as it sounds, as much the listener's as it is his.
