Indian - From All Purity Album Review

Indian's new From All Purity release is like a crash you cannot help but look at even if you don't want to. I think this album is the perfect soundtrack to a slaughterhouse - it is: vile; horrifying; hopeless; and generally fucked up. There is no parting of the clouds - it's all darkness - and almost none of this album is melodic. The lyrics don't help either: "all I want is repetition," "I can't change," "all disease, anxiety, obsession is perfect/like a compliment from all purity," "What's done to me will be done to you." I don't think that I've heard anything as nihilistic as this thing in my life.

I;m sure if I should have any gripes with this record - maybe that there is no hope in this music? I'm not sure if this album espouses a revolutionary nihilism or if it is a political quietest nihilism. I get the sense that it's the latter, and that's a bit bothersome. Contrarily, even if the lyrics point in this direction, there is still something nice about this record. It makes you look at the filth of the world, remind you that it's there. If the elementary gesture of late capitalist ideology is the move of fetishistic disavowal: 'I know very well that there are slaughterhouses, but nonetheless I will go on acting as if there are not so that I can live normally' - then this album is the shock that breaks one out of that spell, if even for a moment. The song "Clarify" is especially perfect in this regard. It's legitimately terrifying - the track turns my stomach. And that's the point, to unsettle you. At least for me, it made me think.

I mean, "the rape within" is the final lyric of the aptly named song, "Rape." It is wretched and screamed over and over and is more terrifying than any American Horror Story episode could ever dream of being. This is music taken to the extreme, and it's incredible. It's gut wrenching. It's crushing in the best way. I can't help but love this album. I think "Directional" is my favorite song for the sake of the music's extremity alone. That's the point of this album too, not exactly what is said in the screams is the takeaway for me, it's the effect this album has on me and my morbid fascination with it that make me love it. Just like the recent White Suns release, this LP is not for the faint of heart. You might also consider turning the volume down before you hit play on the first track. My God.

Hits: "The Impetus Bleeds," "Directional," "Clarify"

Misses: the abrupt ending to "Disambiguation"

Rating: 8/10