The Amenta - N0N

Okay, I should really be doing schoolwork, but I'm in a writing mood and this CD has been sitting in my CD rack for over a month now. So, I'm going to write about it.

I blogged on The Amenta's debut album a while ago, hailing it as a metallic art. I still hold that it is, and I think it's better than the one I'm about to review. However, this one's still very good in a different way. I guess I'll do a track-by-track review here since I can't seem to get myself to do anything worth-while.

01 - On
The opening track is a short ambient intro that sounds kind of like an electronic device being turned on and spewing static and muffled voices amidst the band's trademark apocalyptic computer-noises. Not much to remark on other than it's great as an album starter.

02 - Junky
This one's pretty much along the same lines sound-wise as Occasus, with some new sounds as well; this is pretty much the way it is throughout the album. The basis is the same but they mix it up a lot more with new interesting bits. Lyrically, the song deals with an issue covered by Don Henley, Tool, and probably a hundred other artists: violence on television. It's probably closest Tool's Vicarious though, as it focuses on the viewer, the "media junky." It's very accusatory and doomish, painting a dismal picture of technology taking over our lives and desensitizing us. I think it's still a relevant message.

03 - Vermin
This is the first time I've read the lyrics for this song I think; from what I gather, it's another nihilism thing. Humanity is labeled as vermin, and we're all worthless flesh-heaps with no point or meaning. Religion is a meaningless construction and divinity is nothing. Woo. Like I've said before I don't really like this kind of prose. It's just defeatist. The sound is good, similar to the previous track.

04 - Entropy
Another instrumental/ambient track. This is a bit more structured, and there are some lyrics, but they're not included in the booklet for some reason; most of them are electronically garbled anyway. There's lots of static.

05 - Slave
This is the song that was released early, and by golly is it a good one. It's a tirade against politics, specifically a two-party system as far as I can see, as it repeats the word "binarial" several times. It calls politics "the new religion," and I think it's been established that The Amenta don't like religion very much. I like the sound a lot, it's got the whole pulsing onslaught thing going with bits of ambiance here and there. Apparently Nergal of Behemoth guests on the vocals, but I can't really make him out. The main vocalist's style is very similar.

05 - Whore
I don't really get what this one's about, it seems really similar to Vermin. The "binary" thing comes up again, I guess showing the simplicity of our meaningless lifestyles or something. This is actually a theme throughout the album. The binary thing I mean; the line "on/off/on/off" is repeated in a few songs, although not this one. It's a very technologically oriented thing, fitting for an industrial band.

06 - Spine
I think this one is about the absence of ambition. The last four lines pretty much sum it up:

There is no difference
But there is a choice
There is a shell
But there is no spine

It also hits on the whole "nothing ever changes" thing, hearkening back to Ecclesiastes. Pretty damn depressing just like the rest of the album, but again, powerful sound.

08 - Skin
Here's where it really starts to stray from the previous album. Female vocals! It's the very unknown Sir Alice, whose album entitled "?" I bought shortly after finding out who the sexy french voice belonged to. It's just spoken word, but it's powerful. The lyrics are much more visual than anything else they've written, actually painting a dismal picture of what I think is either a prostitute or a homeless woman. It's mostly ambient-ish, with metal bursts here and there in between more electronic stuff. It's really a nice piece of work.

09 - Dirt
Again, this track a major deviation from everything else they've ever done. Major chords! It almost sounds... happy! It reminds me a lot of Devin Townsend's work. The lyrics aren't much different though. The gist is that everything humanity does is meaningless and amounts to nothing in the end. I think Solomon was a nihilist because this is basically a a paraphrasing of Ecclesiastes. And yet, with the almost joyful intro, I think this song actually sounds like cleaning a slate, contrary to the title. There are some nice pseudo-exultory sounding bits and some more metal chugging, and of course the ambient stuff. This one might be my favorite track just because of the intro.

10 - Atrophy
1 minute and 48 seconds of slow electro-ambience. Lots of cool sounds. It gets a bit more metally near the end.

11 - Cancer
I think the lyrics are talking about conformity. There's talk of wax models and redundancy, and of course the meaningless absence of a point to everything. I'm beginning to sense a bit of cohesion to this album. Nothing entirely special to report about the sound.

12 - Rape
This one's a summary track with helpful advice. The nice guys of the band suggest continuing your pointless rotting existence glued to redundant technology and political figures! Well, I guess it's not so helpful. There's some kinda neat stuff in the listed lyrics, like a couple lines reading [word obscured] to signify the absence of anything real to look to for guidance. Of course the actual thing said is indecipherable, probably just a scream.

You want a saviour?
Try looking in the ad break.
You want redemption?
You want a meaning?
You want an answer?
The answer is
[word obscured]

So, in summary, the lyrics are dumb and go against everything I think I believe in. However, the music is kick-ass and I wish I could find more people in real life who enjoyed this sort of thing.