My Disco - Paradise (2008)

Paradise is full of many contradictions, the most obvious one being that as a listening experience, it’s a great deal closer to hell. The album artwork is befitting of the noise. These songs are desolate, sparse and unforgiving. The desert is uninterrupted and repetitive in its terrain, so too are the 10 beatings which populate Paradise, where chord changes cease to exist. The album was produced by Steve Albini, whose polished production makes for a sharper listen than 2006’s Cancer.

The bass lines in Paradise assault. They force themselves upon the listener repetitively and with bludgeoning precision. Every so often a guitar will flourish, disrupting the drum and bass lines that were exacting a hypnotization.

“You Came To Me Like A Cancer Lain Dormant Until It Blossomed Like A Rose” commences in an almost danceable manner with drum and bass line punches, before battering listeners with an excruciating guitar bellow midway. It operates as a preparation for what’s to come, an album which is merciless, simply and completely.

The album’s centerpiece, “An Even Sun”, stretches for 9 minutes. It’s akin to being strung up. At the conclusion of the song the guitar slows, now you’re phasing out on Rohypnol. There’s an uncertainty and loss of control at this point, the guitars resonate at a leisurely pace.

Paradise is repetitious, unsettlingly so. The record ends with “Land”, a sluggish number which marks the listener’s surrender to the landscape. You were probably hungry for a chord change. Paradise is a record replete with starvation.

An aural rape.

86
(78 - SM)
Combined Rating = 82