Spleen+ (Alfa Matrix) – 1st December 2023
Christopher Nosnibor
Christmas has come early this year, with an absolute deluge of releases landing on1st December, many from acts I like or am otherwise keen to hear. Hanging Freud are in the former bracket, and Worship marks their seventh album release, following 2021’s Persona Normal.
The duo have established themselves as purveyors of premium-quality dark, stark, gothy electro, and with Worship, they solidify their position with aplomb. Persona Normal was recorded at a leisurely pace between 2018 and-2020, and, like so many other releases in the last couple of years, Worship was written and recorded during the pandemic and under lockdown conditions, and the accompanying notes lay out both the contents and context in further detail:
‘The 10 songs featured on this album literally come from a place of contradiction hanging somewhere between courageous vulnerability and fearful resilience, and deal with themes such as collective distress and loss, finding beauty in tragedy or yet questioning about what makes us human in the symbolic contrasts of life and death…. It’s no surprise to hear that this “less is more” introspective ode to melancholia was written in particular claustrophobic circumstances during the pandemic lockdown. “Because of what was going on, we were essentially stuck in temporary accommodation in Scotland, away from our studio and forced into a period unexperienced before. The songs that came out therefore come from a different place. Everything was done within a laptop and is proudly 100% digital. It was recorded and mixed while literally sitting on the side of a bed in a mouse infested apartment…” explains Paula Borges.’
If it sounds like a grim and oppressive set of circumstances for creating art of any kind, then the singles which prefaced the album have set the tone and expectation, while affirming the claustrophobic intensity of the music which emerged from these challenging conditions.
The result is a hybrid of Siouxsie and 17 Seconds era Cure with a hefty dose of New Order’s Movement and dash of Editors circa On This Light and On This Evening. Reference points may be lazy journalism, but they serve a purpose. While this album stands alone like an icy obelisk, singular and a monument to the darkest introversions, some musical context is probably useful for discursive purposes.
The stark ‘Falling Tooth’ is as bleak and haunting as it gets: Paula’s vocals are breathy but theatrical, pitched over a strolling squelchy synth bass and a vintage-synth sound that wanders around over just a few notes, while ‘I pray we keep the world’ is low, slow, sparse, and lugubrious, as well as emotionally taut, and dominated by a truly thunderous drum sound. ‘This Day’ is particularly drum-heavy, withy only gloomy, droning synths sweeping through a heavy mist of atmosphere.
There are some who bemoan the use of drum machines, and who complain that they lack the vibe of a live drummer. Hell, there are contributors to forums and groups devoted to The Sisters of Mercy who question why they don’t get a real drummer, some forty-two years on from their inception. These people are missing the point. Drum machines can do things that human drummers can’t, and one of those is how drum machines can be louder, heavier, more monotonous than a live drummer. And in context for certain music, this can be a real asset, accentuating the sensation of dehumanised detachment of synth music that sits at the colder end of the spectrum. And Worship is one of those albums which will leave you with chapped lips.
It’s against brittle snare cracks and sweeping synths that Paula claws her way through complex emotions, and where the lyrics aren’t immediately decipherable, the haunting vocal delivery is heavy with implicit meaning. It resonates beyond words alone. Everything is paired back to the barest minimum, exposing the darkest recesses of the psyche.
Standing alone as a single, ‘A hand to gold the gun’ was bleak and heavy. Sitting in the middle of the album, this sensation is amplified, accentuated, and the gracefulness of the vocals as they drape around the broad washes of sound which surge and well is that of a dying swan.
‘Her Joy’ is perhaps the least joyful thing you’re likely to hear in a while, and if ‘Beyond’ feels somewhat uplifting, it’s only because it’s a flickering candle flame in an endlessly dark tunnel, as devoid of air as light. The mood is heavy, and presses on the chest, slowly pressing the air out and crushing the spirit, and as the album progresses, the effect is cumulative. By the time we arrive at the piano-led ‘Don’t save yourself for him’, I feel my shoulders sagging and my back hunched forward from the endless weight of this.
Worship is a masterful exercise in poise and restraint, a work which conveys the purest essence of isolation, of desolation.
AA
Aural Aggravation 