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Our Love Will Destroy The World

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Our Love Will Destroy the World, “Blue Eyes Are My Reward” and “I Hate Even Numbers” (Krayon/Dekorder, 2010)

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Campbell Kneale has been enjoying quite an impressive creative rebirth since retiring Birchville Cat Motel and re-emerging as Our Love Will Destroy the World, but he wound up with an extremely difficult predicament on his hands in the process: 2009’s Fucking Dracula Clouds pretty much perfected the art of being as gnarled, ugly, and visceral as possible and took guitar-based noise about as far as it could logically go. Unwilling to repeat himself, these two new albums document Kneale’s struggle to emerge from that stylistic cul de sac and find innovative new ways to remain vital and nightmarish.

It took me a while to warm to Krayon’s Blue Eyes Are My Reward because it feels a bit restrained and scattered compared to past Our Love Will Destroy the World albums. In fact, the exuberantly strummed acoustic guitar in “Kisses Flaming Hell” approximates what I envision Swervedriver jamming at a beach party might sound like (which is “pretty damn annoying,” actually). However, the rest of the album is pretty unwaveringly excellent despite Kneale’s many bold departures from his comfort zone. 

That said, he does include one characteristically snarling hellscape in the roaring “Triple Encryption Dynasty” that should please anyone hoping for more typical OLWDTW fare, yet the remainder of the record is packed full of unexpected surprises ranging from psych-damaged bagpipe drones to tabla-driven ethno-ambiance. There are also several songs that call to mind a more muscular version of mid-period Zoviet France, melding insistently looping pile-ups of odd percussion, field recordings, and voices with strangled and warped guitars. The fact that very few of these pieces are immediately recognizable as Our Love Will Destroy The World could arguably be considered a flaw, but that is an inherent and unavoidable peril with evolution in general. This is a very impressive and unexpected effort.

Listen to Blue Eyes Are My Reward here.

Dekorder’s I Hate Even Numbers, on the other hand, is significantly more immediate, distinct, abrasive, and consistent, yet falls quite flat progression-wise. Thematically, Kneale stays pretty focused on further exploring the possibilities of incorporating thumping beats and deep bass lines to his usual ear-searing, cacophonous onslaught. The dance music elements are generally kept pretty straightforward, like the four-on-the-floor house beat of the title cut, but that seems to be the point: rendering danceable grooves undanceable with shrill feedback, metallic whines, and a litany of non-musical sounds. 

Unfortunately, Kneale doesn’t quite go anywhere particularly worthwhile with it on the first half of the album, opting to idly ravage unchanging beats without much in the way of pay-off. The second side of the album is a bit more inventive, as both “Snipers on Skis” and “Twins Like Swans” are built upon unusual mutant-Indian beats, but it still can’t escape feeling like a series of underdeveloped song skeletons. The album’s brightest spot is “Tokyo Modern Magic” which marries a somewhat anthemic synth motif to grinding guitar noise and bubbling electronics with some success. It still fails to evolve much, but it achieves a kind of immersive power simply through sheer density and activity. I Hate Even Numbers is definitely heavy and attention-grabbing, but its appeal dies rapidly with repeat listens.

Of the two albums, Blue Eyes Are My Reward is the vastly superior one, proving that Campbell is still as daring, restless, and inspired as ever. In fact, Kneale himself has described it as the best thing he’s ever done and I come pretty close to agreeing, but Fucking Dracula Clouds was an absolute monolith of brutality. I Hate Even Numbers should have been yet another such triumph, but Campbell appears to have lost his talent for dynamics somewhere during the recording process: he seems a bit de-fanged, content to merely augment his songs with harshness rather than aggressively tearing them to shreds or burying them in avalanches of entropy. The difference between “unpleasantly discordant” and “viciously ugly” is a hugely important one, I’m afraid. These two records definitely leave me pleasantly puzzled, hinting that Campbell’s days as a guitar abuse visionary may be winding to a close, but that yet another artistic breakthrough may be imminent.
 
Listen to I Hate Even Numbers here.
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Our Love Will Destroy The World, “Fucking Dracula Clouds” (Blackest Rainbow, 2009)

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Our Love Will Destroy The World’s debut full-length (2009’s Stillborn Plague Angels) was a strikingly ugly, cathartic, and demonic affair that seemed to take guitar-based noise to its logical extreme. It turns out that it hadn’t, however, as Campbell Kneale’s newest black-hearted slab of vinyl makes it clear that he has no trouble at all dreaming up ingenius new ways to be bilious and face-meltingly heavy.

“Halloweenteeth” commences the horror of Fucking Dracula Clouds with a relatively tame low drone that is soon joined by a ride-cymbal drumbeat and a repeating feedback loop. Within a minute or so, however, all hell breaks loose and the groove is blindsided by an avalanche of shrieking, howling white noise chaos. At that point, all pretensions of song-craft and accessibility are conclusively vanquished for the remaining duration of the album. The rest of “Halloweenteeth” unfolds as a dense, throbbing, roiling squall of seething ugliness and it is wonderful. Somewhere beneath it all lurks something melodic and xylophone-like, but it is never allowed to come to the fore. Instead, it sounds like a pleasant song that is being bludgeoned to death.

“The Pleasure’s Everlasting” follows in much the same vein, though it is a bit more static and droning than its predecessor. It is built upon a thick bed of hums and crackles, but strangled guitar and swooping gales of static and electronics continually threaten to burst forth from the entropic miasma and take the piece in a harsher direction. It never happens though. In fact, the piece concludes without ever evolving or cohering into something more, yet it never becomes at all boring due to the sheer density and complexity of squirming and seething small-scale eruptions that Campbell has woven into it. While it is the certainly the most minor piece on the album, it is a very effective exercise in the power of simmering tension.

The entire second side of the record is occupied by the album’s clear centerpiece, “In Sleep We Creep,” which unexpectedly begins with the coupling of sloppy noise rock noodling and a ’90s techno synth bass line. Gradually, that unholy marriage is joined by a chorus of mangled voices and a buried thumping house beat, both of which steadily increase in presence. Then, both the garage rock riffage and bass line abruptly vanish, leaving only a thumping four-on-the-floor beat, thick doom-y distortion, and an intense cacophony of voices that sounds like a riot of the damned. 

Amusingly, it sounds like there is a cowbell incorporated into the murky, buried beat. Détourning a sexy dance beat into a pulsing, unhinged nightmare is an unexpectedly wry (and effective) move, displaying an impish side to Kneale that has historically been well-concealed. Eventually Campbell casts the beat aside, leaving only an anguished, smoldering wreckage of feedback and howling voices.

This is a significant creative step forward, as the inclusion of dark humor, ruined melodies, and pop music snippets, as well as the increased role of electronics and field recordings, show that Kneale’s singularly uncompromising and infernal vision still has a great deal of room left for expansion. Fucking Dracula Clouds is yet another great (and terrifying) record by one of the current reigning high priests of unpleasantness. 

Listen here.

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Our Love Will Destroy The World, “Stillborn Plague Angels” (Dekorder, 2009)

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Campbell Kneale may longer be known as Birchville Cat Motel, but he certainly has not stopped making abrasive, nightmarish music. Surprisingly, curating a Prince tribute album (Shutupalreadydamn!) has failed to translate into a funkier, sexier Neale. Stillborn Plague Angels is exactly the sort of album that Satan would make if he had the time and inclination to start a noise band.

Campbell Kneale has made many unusual changes in his artistic life over the last few years.  Most notably, he ended both the influential and beloved (in certain circles) Birchville Cat Motel (largely due to frustration with fan expectations), and his record label, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon (allegedly torching all unsold stock in a bonfire). Additionally, he formed a doom metal band called Black Boned Angel, started the Our Love Will Destroy The World project, and developed some serious animosity towards digital media (“Nobody’s going to love a puny uploaded file…they might like it, or maybe find it interesting, or be able to list it on their ‘what I’m listening to now’ blog. But they wont be able to LOVE it. These people are cursed.”). In keeping with this newfound media idealism, Stillborn Plague Angels is only available on vinyl.

The title track kicks the album off on an appropriately ugly and unsettling note, as a distorted throb lays the foundation for a menacing, metallic shimmer. Gradually, layers and layers of dissonant and unsettling synths and guitar noises are built up until the song culminates in a bizarrely effective atonal lead guitar part that would make Jandek smile. Amusingly, this teeth-rattling discordance is among the more melodic and conventionally musical moments on the album, as there are at least actual, clearly defined, notes being played.

The following two tracks can best be described as grotesque and corrupt hellscapes. They are both painful, uncompromising, and very difficult to listen to. I find that “Pink Hollow Paradise” is more of squirming, chattering, strangled miasma of shrill queasiness while “Chinese Emperors” leans more towards being a wavering, slow motion, anguished howl. I don’t know if I will ever listen to these tracks again, but they are both resoundingly successful in creating a palpable sense of abject horror. 

After some disquieting shimmering drone, “Chinese Emperors” erupts into the mournful guitar squall of “Over Prehistoric Texas” (although it might just be one long track entitled “Chinese Emperors and The Army of Eternity Over Prehistoric Texas”—the Dekorder website seems to think they are separate and I feel ill-equipped to win an argument with them over it, so i will assume that two separate tracks segue).  While “Texas” is undeniably more melodic than the previous three tracks, it seems a bit anticlimactic and uninspired after the previous visceral abominations.

Naturally, music this unrepentantly harsh will appeal to very few people, but Stillborn Plague Angels is a complete success artistically. Terms like “good,” “bad,” and “listenable” seem irrelevant in the face of such elephantine and single-minded ugliness. Dekorder quite aptly describes this album as “endless roaring catastrophe” and I have absolutely no qualifications to add to that. If such a thing sounds at all appealing, Campbell Kneale is someone to watch closely (albeit definitely without hassling him about your fucking unmet expectations).

Listen here.