2L8

Armed Angels, Frustrated Youth, the Art of Self Deceit and Music Industry

CD, Poeta Negra

2L8 have taken it upon them to carry a big tradition onwards and the results are amazing and exciting. At the moment I am afraid that this record will make the clouds outside my window grow bigger and bigger and finally evolve in a big thunderstorm that will darken the earth and shake the walls of cities; which would be most unwelcome (I’ll have to spend tomorrow outside.) In clear contrast to the record, which revolves in my CD player like a crystal hearth spending warmth and chills at the same time. Bitterness and frustration vent into bleak inner monologues supported by an intense mixture of gothic/indie-rock and industrial electronics. Their musical roots seem to be 15 years old, but their mindsets are definitely in the present time. Get ready for something big that’ll roll over you like “f#a# infinity” or a steamroller: slow but unbending.

I haven’t heard such intensity combined with such complete darkness from a band ever since The Swans called it quits. There is even an analogue brooding intimacy running through some of the songs, a closely related fondness for breaking into full-blown noise-bursts and the same unhinged musical consequence. And even though I am usually against using such frank comparisons so early onwards in a review, for 2L8 I am unable to get it out my head: Michael Gira and Jarboe, dimly lit concert stages, redundant melodies and a big wall of sound and noise, unimaginably intense and electrifying and completely unexpected from knowing the records alone. That was the magic of The Swans in a nutshell. I am ever that grateful to Kosta Voziki and his comrades for bringing that spirit up again and giving me such a nice flashback from the past. After all, it is a lot better to listen to a great new band playing music that reminds me (and maybe only me) of something else, than listening to an old band that used to be great and now is almost unbearable (I am going to see Echo & The Bunnymen tomorrow – that’s where my reluctance comes from in this respect). In other words, and to really stomp this comparison into the ground, 2L8 are more like if The Swans had been frozen in time, injected with a youth serum and left on their own to conquer the world again.

Of course, 2L8 is neither retro nor backwards-minded. There is plenty of stuff going on that would have never been able back then. The absentminded theremin-sounds on “Lazy Lover”. The industrial-noise base and power electronics of “Wounded Animals Smell Funny”. The sudden changes in arrangement and atmosphere that make songs walk different directions at the same time or abruptly change from really big to simple and small in a heartbeat. The other industrial parts with the distorted voice and the stomping rhythms, that Trent Reznor would be envious of. The falsetto-singing on “Kind Criminal (pt. 2) Despite of all these very differing bitparts, “Armed Angels, Frustrated Youth, …” is a big block of music, a concrete and complex mass of material that stands tall and big like a rock. From the classic dark-noise-opener “Wings break heat image” to the almost Radiohead-like “Kind Criminal (pt. 2)” there is never a single minute missing with excitement or tensions.

Moreover, “Armed Angels, Frustrated Youth, the Art of Self-Deceit and the Music Industry” is one of the best titles for an album that I have ever heard. Plus, it describes the contents of the record better than I could. In the course of this record you’ll meet stern but friendly advisors speaking to you from their grave, lovers that don’t know why or if they are in love anymore, shattered youths and destroyed futures, butterflies with broken wings and a lot more dark and depressing imagery. Voziki works the issue down to its final step, far beyond the last drop of liquid in the glass, you’ll get him saying “I will no longer bite my tongue / I will no longer pretend everything is fine / I name these hands avengers here I come / I will scar, I will scar, I will scar / and it will feel good” (from “Wounded Animals Smell Funny”). These lines are contrasted to a low female voice repeating “save me”, which could either be the other half of the personae of the singer speaking or one of his victims. Definitely the dark side of the force and there is more bitterness and betrayal waiting up ahead. You’ll be searching in vain for reasons on here on how to be able to bear living in this world? But, as one of the first lines in this record go: “Underneath every truth there hides a lie”. Could be true for everyone, including 2L8.

For the label, this release is also a big step in a new direction from their more IDM/electronica-oriented earlier albums (e.g. by Dani Joss or Peekay Tayloh) towards more band / song-oriented material. On the other hand, there was a certain darkness and foreboding atmosphere hanging over these other releases as well. But I have never heard songs about suicide as intense as on this record.

www.poetanegra.com

8/2005