End of the world loony tunes, Blitzkrieg Baby are back with their second album and it ain’t gonna be pleasant in the slightest. If you are an end of days prophet though, this could be your new soundtrack to Armageddon and with the world heading to hell in a handcart of its own fucked-upness, embrace it or be a denier, the choice is yours. Helmed by Kim Sølve who is behind Trine and Kim Design Studio and who has composed striking images for many weird and wonderful musical artists, Blitzkrieg Baby are an electronic act conceived with assistance from other shadowy foretellers of the apocalypse. As those of us who have experienced debut album ‘Porcus Norvegicus’ and EP’s such as ‘Kid’s World’ will attest, this is not going to be a comfortable listening experience.
‘Hip-Hip Hooray’ booms in like an invading army of robotic overlords stomping everything to dust. A voice heralds their march and its chilling in the extreme, narrating in an alien fashion without a hint of humanity the voracious hunger of their killing and burning scorched earth policy. The irony of the song title is chanted with a warbling female voice as accompaniment. It’s enough to make you shudder and if you are looking for relief here you will not find anything in the way of a safe space. Even the instrumental tracks such as ‘Apocalypse Go Go’ are full of sinister tones and brooding funereal fear as judgement day is brought ever closer to completion. A waltz pervades as ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ swings into town and there is a sleazy macabre vibe about it as the narrator continues with perverse humour about filthy boys invoking mass genocide and destruction. The excuse of the song title has been used through history and when one idiot childlike boy with a mop of unruly hair perhaps presses the button it’s Doctor Strangelove time. You can imagine this as the soundtrack to said film as an H-bomb is straddled and along with Kong flies into the glory ride. Actually ‘Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’ would be a perfect album title for Blitzkrieg Baby!
After an unceasing musical tableaux of carpet bombs land with rattling slow percussion and culminates in a military war-time foxtrot the jackboots mark out ‘The March Of Human Progress I.’ Destruction of each other and everything surrounding so called humanity is the resulting image one is left with in the head this is mondo music in that sense. The second part oozes out the shadows with serial killer stealth and suddenly a clean vocal part sounding reminiscent of Ihsahn suddenly breaks through. The main vocals here though are whispered and make you want to hear the message even more, the fact you can’t properly and it is left to the imagination is possibly not a good thing as this is already tipping your mind over the edge.
There’s no innocence here, you don’t need words on “A Child Soldier With the Eyes of a Clown” to paint a picture, everyone is caught up in the madness of mass extermination. ‘Filth Load’ is a load of fetid phrases recanted through a transmitter like apparatus. Words play cut up together like a Burroughs nightmare; “Prime time televised executions” and “Ebola sperm bukkake” being the first couple just to give you a taste… as they are paired up with martial drumming. Think of Mayhem’s Sylvester Anfang’ and this is a Grand Declaration Of War’ and it’s a grim and macabre one; the only salvation a “shotgun fellatio” perhaps. “The end is near” is chanted out, you better believe it baby! Sombre and dismal the title track is complete slow nihilism without hope in its instrumental plod and austere choral work setting the mood up perfectly for the final ‘Countdown To Extinction.’ The industrial endpiece is surprisingly upbeat, well we may as well go out smiling and it is noted the pervading humour underlying the whole album by way of paradox. There’s a touch of Laibach here too and as we get to the very last notes, well those of you hearing this won’t be able to leave it without a shit eating grin on your faces.
It seems at the moment this is limited to just 75 copies on vinyl but hopefully it will be put up on Bandcamp for digital consumption before the inevitable…
(8/10 Pete Woods)
Leave a Reply