Love is Nothing - Chapter II (Annihilvs Power Electronix)

Yet another CDr, from my long term storage, haven't listened to this in a long while actually, but recently I'm pulling out a lot of "fresh" finds, put on second splash of deodorant, blow off the dust... good as new, right? Not quite, but some of these have managed to age beautifully and Love is Nothing has come back to claim it's due, and I'm giving in to it now.

PE of the highest caliber! From the acoustic/classical out of tune folk guitar intro to Chapter II as "How Have I Wronged Her?" to the second of three parts known as "Ice", the shouted vocal parts (very Navicon Torture Technologies here, in fact its the same dude) over a dismal and dare I say it COLD ambience of pulsating bare bones but also bone breaking pummels. I'm not looking at the CDr now in the player, but the disturbing buzzing and swishing of what I presume to be saw blades coming on top rendering the sterile pummeling moot as the trajectory is now in a macabre machine shop of true horrors. This, to my mind, still nursing yet another headache, is exactly what you picture your last moments of life as when reading about or...I'm going to pause there...

A slow menagerie of struggling to free yourself from what appears to be a web, too beaten and war torn, PTSD setting in but useless as this spider, the real Black Widow, comes towards you with power tools in hand so there is no telling what additional outside horrors lie in wait as this is what living in Hell surely feels like. 

Not to sound disturbing, but this CDr certainly makes it hard to not GO THERE, and surely this is the type of thing that Leonard Lake and Charles Ng would paint in watercolors of human bodily fluids, so candidly as they proceed with the ultimate power struggle ending with the lives of many. The last hurrah!

Consumed, entirely without any shred of remorse, a true predators lament as is being told here through part 1: How have I wronged Her?/Ice/Animals Mourn. The harrowing morbid muffled screams of lunacy, of savagery that spring forth slowly across the barren trees, reverb and echo drenched....drawn out, patiently....for miles of empty terrain, waiting for the moment to come to it's inevitable close. Seriously twisted electronics here!! It's impossible to not get swept up in the ambiance though.

What is seemingly, like much NTT and even Theologian work, it's the creepy, the eerie, the unmistakable pit gnawing at your soul from the inside out...it's that atmosphere that ultimately colors your perceptions and that is what makes this here and others like it so powerful. It's what goes unsaid, it's that ominous droning of frigid death and psychological fuckery that even I don't dare to say as to what it paints for in the back of my mind, but even Goya wasn't this grotesque in his final days.  

Part II: Praise Life/Springtime of the Soul is as bleak as Part I, only the staggering blurry image of psychopathy has given way to industrialized, controlled patterns with more optimism and versatility than before as it's a completely new chapter here, the rhythm is more active and up front but whether that is a true form of "optimism"....now that is  is yet to be determined.

But what can be determined is that this is definitely NOT an album to be left buried, unlike it's victims. This is one to listen to at dusk or throughout the night time hours for best results, as the exaggerated screams and vocal cries collide with the images of fear leaving you cowering in the corner wetting yourself of buckling up for the ride of your life. 

Definitely a MUST hear, possibly a desert island disc for some like myself,  but listen fairly loud to fully penetrate into your unconscious,  and then go for headphones, for atmospheres at random volumes and at different times of year and even time of day, because it's through these independent listens that it truly comes alive, no slasher here as this is long drawn out edge of seat intensity and depending on where you stand with this, that could be a good thing, but it could also unleash debauchery and even madness, either way though,,,you'll be a changed person forever inside. Between the different moods of yours, different perspectives perhaps...but those combined with the accumulation of this experience played over and over will render you helpless,  and all of those revisits, each one more disturbing than the rest, will unearth the truly raw and primitive within you. 

It's subtle moments of calm and clarity that unveil the truth behind the sounds, and sure...it's just sounds, but there's something more nuanced here that begs comparison to The Shining to start to get the hint at what this entails.

It should be available still from Annihilvs (link below) in digital format but can also be sourced via Discogs for fairly cheap too if need be.

https://annihilvspowerelectronix.bandcamp.com/album/chapter-ii