The Answer Is In The Beat

Poison Dwarfs: Labil (Timezone, 2012)

August 4, 2013 at 11:11 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

This was a promo Foxy Digitalis sent me last year to review, back when Foxy Digitalis was a thing, and I just never got around to reviewing it. I actually still have dozens of promos they’ve sent me that I haven’t even touched. This one I listened to when I got it, but it’s been sitting around untouched for months. Anyway, it’s a new (well, as of last year) album from a German post-punk group that’s been around since the early ’80s. I’m really intrigued to hear this group’s earlier stuff, because I’m all about ’80s cassette underground type stuff, and inevitably a new album from a group from that era isn’t going to sound the same as the earlier material. But for what this is, it’s still pretty impressive. Tense, sometimes dramatic post-punk with violent noisy bursts of guitar, crashing drums, and some jittery synths. Definitely some noisy no-wave similar to Swans and Neubauten and various Nick Cave projects, but also with quieter, beauteous moments, also like those artists. Some of the more atmospheric, sublime songs remind of me of some of Coil’s similar moments as well. “Transit Town” starts with dramatic horns and vocals, and ends with violent crashing noise. “Skid Row” has kind of a tricky rhythm and rapidly pulsing synths, and ends up messy, crashy and slurry. “Oh, Yes” is softer and piano-based, and is very much reminiscent of John Balance of Coil’s more ballad-y moments, but less electronic, and with some German lyrics. “Labil” is an interlude with spoken German vocals with various distortion effects, some busy-crowd sounds, rambling piano, and a noise burst towards the end. “Parade” has grinding noise guitars but a calmer (or at least quieter) rhythm. “Do It Again” starts with a creepy whispered part, but then turns into a nice rhythm, vocals sung in English and German, and screeching guitars, and then (fake) crowd noise at the end. “Es Ist Ein Shnitter” has an odd atmosphere, droning keyboards, and uncomfortably high-in-the-mix vocals in German. “Hans Im Gluck” is kinda crashing and ambling, doesn’t seem to get off the ground. “Serenade” is an interlude of pianos, crashing drums, some sort of bleating horn, nervous canned laughter, and a small crashing burst at the end. “I Do Like This” has dramatic keyboards and vocals and occasional crashing drums. “Weg Hier” is a jumble of various voices speaking at the same time, plus pianos and feedback noise. Eventually there’s some sinister laughter in there. Gets pretty dark and heavy. “Some Sort Of Content” starts by repeating a sample of a voice saying “art is going to die very quickly”, along with a clanging rhythm and caustic guitars. A paced drum set plays a rhythm and smashes cymbals with guitar bursts, and the voice says “some sort of content.”