OK gentle readers, strap yourself in. This is a marathon not a sprint. When I popped my head over the parapet and my hand up for this review I had no idea what was in store. 24 tracks! 24 fucking tracks!!!!!! Opium Warlords is the brainchild of Reverend Bizarre (and a million other bands) Sami Albert Hynninen.

This is no grindcore blast through either. It’s not like there are 24 sub thirty second bangers – this is a proper double album. A double concept album in 4 parts.  A double concept album that purports to be a hate/love letter to Europe mixing – (deep breath) pussy techno, sludge, industrial pop, hardcore punk, drone, shamanistic pulse, noise, heavy metal, old school gothic rock and march music.

Hmm.

It’s too long (fnaar fnaar). I will qualify this trite statement as I realise that this can come off as just an attention deficit punk guy who likes short songs and punchy albums. I can appreciate art that builds to a crescendo and the need to enjoy the journey. It doesn’t all have to be about the instant gratification with me.

However, there is a lot of build up with little pay off here, and as such Strength! Plays out like a soundtrack for an experimental arthouse picture that needs a brave editor with a big pair of scissors to walk behind the auteur.

After a digital voice opener the first musical track is “Feel the Strength” which is a straightforward Laibach / Rammstein style martial stomp. It apes the formers vocal style and the latter’s structure but it just goes on too long. After 3 mins I am done with this track – its pomp and oppressive vibe is diluted by added layers of guitars and electronics and it is left like  the end of a sad ice pole, Watery and lukewarm. It meanders onto “The Essence of Life” with more martial drums and even more Laibach from Wish vibes.

Everything that I love about Laibach  – the mix of martial music  with pop sensibility, oppressive beats with danceable rhythms , propaganda and agitprop stylings is turned into a pastiche here. When Sami starts singing about Hitler and swastikas over wafty acoustic guitars in “Fashionista” I am losing my will not triumphing from it. I know that this album is a musical essay on strength and elitism through the lens of Nietzsche and Machiavelli but it is leaving me cold. Well bored if I am honest. For this I apologise to Opium Warlord as I am evidently not the key audience for Strength!

After suffering through a track of synthesised xylophone I made it to a mish-mash of avant-garde noise in the name of “War against Suicide” . I can be partial to a bit of cut and paste noise and field recordings but this just grates and then a proggy track with the refrain “He was a gentle man ….a gentle man” over and over again.

It is at this point I realise that going through track by track is going to punish both myself and the artist, so, much like a diner faced with a meal at a hosts table I will pick out the bits I like and hide the rest under my cutlery.

“It Never Happened” is a slice of psych tinged doom rock that got my head nodding. I am going to gloss over the Cabaret meets Peter Murphy of “Everything Goes” and get on with the punky Sisters of Mercy groove of WWII. This is early SOM style – the not on full length stuff – Home of the Hitmen style. I am here for this. Proper lo-fi goffic grooves. It reeks of patchouli, snakebite and cheap speed. The feel continues onto “Der Heilige Berg” with some Bontempi beats over some swooping keys interspersed with German news footage from the 30’s.

“Parasites” picks up the pace a bit with a Melvins style fuzz riffarama – not sure about the Bal Sagoth style vocals though.

I was not expecting the Motorhead meets Discharge of “The Hashashin”. It delighted me for the first couple of minutes before spending a few minutes retreading the intro to Stonehenge by Spinal Tap. I was willing an onslaught of vertically challenged chaps to end it when the rumbling bass beckoned in a Lemmy meets Bones reprise. There follows some lo-fi noise chaos in Alien Harvest – kinda jazz grind maybe?

“Erotomania” takes a swing for the lo-fi SOM sound again but strikes out. Not a bad go at the Carl McCoy vocals but rhyming Erotomania with Transylvania? Aaargh.

As bugles sound at the end of “March!” signifying the dissipation of Strength! I am both under and overwhelmed at the same time.

With some hefty editing there is an interesting E.P of 4 tracks here. Two of which I would probably listen to more than three times again.  At least the needles in this bloated haystack shine a little brighter than the surplus dried grass that surround them.

(3/10 Matt Mason)  

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https://opiumwarlords.bandcamp.com/track/feel-the-strength-2