22nd March 2024
Christopher Nosnibor
Everyone has a different way of processing, everyone’s cognition operates differently. It’s all a matter of experience and perception. The broader one’s experience, and also one’s exploration of art – in all media, be it books, music, visual art – the broader the network of intertext and references available. Formative experiences and interactions are also a significant factor in the way we come to shape and comprehend our world. And so it s that the moment I encounter the words ‘Black Maria’, my mind immediately leaps to ‘Afterhours’ by The Sisters of Mercy – my first encounter with the term, long before I would understand that it was a term for a police van. Attrition’s latest release certainly doesn’t elicit images of dark vehicles, but does hint at the seedy backstreet scenes that the Sisters song brings to mind, with its sense of disconnection, of being outside yourself, .the paranoid twitch of sleep deprivation
The album’s brief intro track, ‘The Promise’ is a murky ambient piece with hushed spoken-word vocals which is build a mood, a sense of dark atmosphere and foreboding. This intro track thins has really become a vogue in recent years, to the point that it’s becoming predictable and even frustrating to be presented with an atmospheric opening piece which probably isn’t particularly representative of the album it prefaces.
In the case of The Black Maria, it’s a fair primer for the wildly varied, even cacophonous blend of musicality which follows. ‘The Great Derailer’ brings operatic vocals and some bold technoindustrial grooves, before ‘The Switch’ gives us some techno-heavy goth with strong hints of Twitch-era Ministry woven into the mix. But once again, against the busy backdrop that alludes to the likes of PIG and KMFDM, there are ethereal moans and wails which drape themselves hauntingly. I’ve loosely reminded of some of the contributions Gitane DeMone made to Christian Death around the time of Ashes, or maybe Jarboe on Swans’ Children of God, but this is somehow different, and if anything, more difficult to assimilate.
Attrition bring a vast array of styles to the table for a start. ‘The Pillar II’ is exemplary: a low industrial throb brings a heavy tension, an unsettling uncertainty, which manifests as a discomfiture in the lower regions of the gut. But the wailing wordless vocals evoke tortured souls, wandering in purgatory. There are tense strings swelling and holding a tight grip, you find your chest tightening and it’s hard to swallow for this clench of tension. It evokes physical response: I feel my jaw clench and my breathing growing more laboured as the track builds layers of sound: there’s a hum that tortures the ears, and when it falls away, the sensation is strange, empty.
Music box melancholy prefaces more ultra-tense violins on ‘The Alibi’, which really takes a turn for the disturbing. The dual vocals grate against one another, dark sinister, deranged, almost schizophrenic in their whispers. The layers are busy and there are serpentine instrumental intrusions amidst the strolling piano and skittering strings and the wild cacophony of backing vocals: the effect is absolutely dizzying. The title track draws the album to a close with warping, time-bending synth dissonance and pulsating bass which contrasts with operatic quailing providing the backdrop to a growled, menacing spoken word vocal – and then it goes large near the end, with industrial-strength percussion cutting through the melee.
‘Spooky’ feels like such a weak, tame adjective in the main, but it’s the best I’ve got when it comes to summarising the otherworldly discomfit of the experience that is The Black Maria. But throughout The Black Maria, Attrition channel all of the dissociation and disconnection, and I’d challenge anyone to listen to this and keep their feet completely on the ground.
AA
Aural Aggravation 