Prurient - Pleasure Ground

Note: This is the first in what will be occasional album reviews. The only way I review an album is if I feel it is FUCKING amazing or FUCKING abismal. This is the first. I also listened to this album at night after I got angry at Kelly. So it just made sense to listen to an angry record. It probably affected the way I wrote this.

So Colin informed me that the radio station recieved a huge package of shit from Load records. I've managed to rip most of the stuff we recieved but there are still some other albums I need. One of the albums that was sent to us was the latest Dominick Fernow release, "Pleasure Ground".

For those who don't know who Dom Fernow is, he goes by the noise alias of PRURIENT. I saw him in 2005 with Wolf Eyes and ever since then I've been hooked on the guy. The man is fucking incredible to watch live and to listen to on record. His albums like "The History of AIDS" and "Troubled Sleep" have kept me up many nights paranoid about whether or not I should go to sleep.

His last release "Black Vase" was his most accessible as well as commercial. It has been his most sucessful release and it was a damn good record with drums that made me cringe. I listened to it non-stop and slowly began devolving into the gaunt, harsh noise junky/perveor/creator that I am today. I attribute most of my artistic aspiration to the Wolf Dudes and Dom.

This latest album, "Pleasure Ground" is without a doubt his opus. It is his masterpiece. I don't even know where to begin with how incredible this album is. I am only pissed that I couldn't hear it last year so I could put it as the best album of the year which it definitely would have been.

The album is 4 tracks of harsh noise/feedback/no-wave synth loops that drone, weave and decimate the mind in just under 40 minutes. The first track "Military Road" kicks it off with just a destructive beat that is enhanced by Dom's devestating vocals. They are the rawest they have ever been and also the most disturbing. The screams and howls make me want to get up and punch a hole in your face. The track ends with Dom scream-repeating the phrase, "The badge of punishment." Ohhhh man. If that doesn't give you goosebumps, then you aren't alive. I know it made my skin tingle and my blood boil.

The next track Earthworks/Buried a Secret is a two-part symphony of brutality that starts off dissonant enough and then builds up into this frenetic burst of dissonant synth loops and aural assaults on the listener. This is by far the best track on the album as the unsettling synth drone just adds so much to an already upsetting song. You think it will get better but it just gets worse and worse and by the end of it you just want to curl up into a ball and scream until you puke up blood.

The third track outdoorsmen/indestructible is another track that starts of droney and ends in a cacaphonic collage of chaos. Dom employs a slower harsh beat in this track that at times sounds as if someone is being smashed in the head with a hammer. "Indestructible" is a perfect way to describe the track as well as PRURIENT in general.

The last track "Apple Tree Victim" is just an all out brawl. Dom finishes everything up by attacking the listener until they are forced to accept what is going on. It's another harsh masterpiece similar to some of the tracks on "Troubled Sleep", except the lyrics are much more disturbing. "Apple Tree Victim" gives off false hope to anyone thinking the album will end nicely as the apple tree is just a front for a much more disturbing sound. As a matter of fact with lyrics like "does our death turn you on", "badge of punishment" and "the final cum", the whole album pretty much acts as one big forced S&M experience.

And really this is what the album does. The album forces itself upon the listener by attacking it, settling it down so as it accept your punishment, and once again unleashing a disturbing amount of pain. The album acts as an audbible rape to the listener. At first you might struggle and writhe in pain, sorrow, tears and suffering but by the end of the album you've laid back and accepted what is happening. With the final lyric being, "the final cum", it's easy to see that by the end of this thing even Dom knows he has raped you and everything you ever believed in. This is easily his best album and one of the best noise albums of all time.

Warning: if you don't like noise or industrial, don't listen to this album. YOU WILL BE OFFENDED and YOU WILL NOT LIKE WHAT YOU HEAR. With that said, even if you do like noise, you should probably prepare yourself for the album. I know I didn't and now I sit here in the dark, crying wishing the sun would rise.
- CHRIST