Missiles from Malmö, Sweden, want to Weaponize Tomorrow, and rightly so, because without weapons Tomorrow might not survive.
The future, if we are to have one, certainly needs help defending itself. However, there is one small problem. How can it be done? What weapons to send? It can’t be projectiles. Information might be a means to help Tomorrow, information of the factual kind. But unfortunately, information is often perceived as dry data and doesn’t generate any emotional response. Counter-culture art is a more useful tool, especially music. In that sense, goth rock, post punk and other subcultural genres of music have been hard at work for decades portraying the dystopian future awaiting us. The band and the album at hand are joining in that effort.
Missiles were founded in 2016 when Gabriel Forslund of Antichrist gathered some friends from rather diverse musical backgrounds to kickstart a new project. With years of combined experience in metal, punk and even surf (a genre not often mentioned on these pages), they settled on post punk and goth rock. After a 7″ single, released in their first year, Weaponize Tomorrow is Missiles’ first full-length album, the band having since grown into a dedicated entity with a stable line-up.
So, what’s the album about, besides weaponizing tomorrow? The cover depicts a small child sitting on the floor of a control room, a toy (?) assault rifle beside her, crying for someone to comfort her and pick her up, but there is no one in sight. The grown-ups, it seems, have eradicated themselves.
Via a blend of post punk, goth rock and industrial rock, the album presents visions from a disturbing, noir dystopia. The soundscapes of the album’s eight songs, packed into an easily digestible and concise 31 minutes, morph from catchy and nervously energetic to cold and threatening-sounding and back again. We hear tales and melodies of disfunction that are not entirely new, but certainly have a fresh ring to them here, originating from a bit of weirdness.
Like a space ship, and by the way of sci-fi synths sounds, the album’s intro transports us to an undated future where strange things happen under a Dead Summer Moon. To find out how strange exactly, you might want to check out the video to the track Living in a Nuclear Town, where the rather happy, danceable tunes contrast with the disturbing pictures. The Deathlike Love is cold, in a hurry and calls The Sisters of Mercy to mind. The End of the Line appears mid-album, monotonous and bleak, but is followed by a Circular Madness. This, surprisingly, makes sense, because we do like to repeat our mistakes. The pest of Leeches is bothering mankind before air raid sirens set in, after which follow the somewhat ominous, disillusioned tunes of Radio Dark.
Weaponize Tomorrow is an album absolutely worth checking out, especially for fans of post punk and goth rock. But it might also be worth a listen for everybody else out there who desperately needs something to counterbalance the tunes that have been coming from the band’s home town in recent weeks and which might have made you think that the world has gone ballistic. Touché, Missiles.
(7.5/10 Slavica)
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