Worship

“… [Martyrs] were supersensual men, who found enjoyment in suffering. They sought out the most frightful tortures, even death itself, as others seek joy, and as they were, so am I…” – Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

The real masochists of this world are a rare and fascinating breed. There are all sorts of pain a masochist can submit himself to, and aside from the pain itself, the variety of infliction may be one of the most enticing things about the practice. The first order prefers abuse of the flesh; regularly cutting, burning, and flailing the epidermis, and in turn experiencing the endorphin rush coupled with that unmistakable sting. That of the second order submits himself to repeated psychological beatings—he knowingly steps into situations where degradation and mental chastisement are imminent. Lastly, there is the realm of the audio masochist who dabbles in all forms of aural displeasure and suffering. Of course, in many instances two or all three of these factions may cross paths. Now, those who make up the rungs of societal thought say masochism is a malady of the human mind. If one assents to psychological doctrine then “those who make up the rungs” would be right. Yet, diverging upon the path of society’s superficial worldview for answers as to what maladies are or are not retains no real worth. Instead, finding true malady is not such difficult task. In fact, ladies and gents, it seems to be right in front of our faces: a malady in the form of audio so downright wrong that it would make even the most masochistic scurry to shelter in alarm; sounds that would simultaneously cause brain aneurysms and induce feticide. Wicked Innocence has managed to record such sounds, or rather maladies, with Worship, and it is a wonder that the mixing and mastering engineers did not crumple dead to the floor in the studio during the production.

These blind, deaf, and well, not mute (to the listener’s misfortune) “musicians” have really set a new bench mark for musical retardation. Many an avant-garde or “experimental” metal band has come along and excreted their individual forms of “creativity,” but at least such bands have a musical label to fall back on. This band has no excuse. Wicked Innocence ran out of excuses the day they decided to pick a solitary dissonant Immolation riff or a Suffocation worship groove on their down-tuned guitars. Wicked Innocence has explored perversion, o yes, but in all the wrong ways. Worship is not built on the musical perversion that founded Death Metal, quite the opposite. This album is just, well, almost anything but Death Metal. Verily, it seems rather ambiguous what these whelps are in fact worshipping.

At the beginning of some songs one may think, “Oh, this sounds like it could be good…” Instead, the term “could” connotes the actual quality of the music. Sure, it could have been good, and was so for about the whole of 4 elapsed seconds. Yet, afterwards, this “musical” monstrosity, Wicked Innocence, is wont to debauch any last remnant of quality they once had. The band may have a nice semi-technical Suffocation groove going, and after about a measure of that, they decide it is time to switch from that aromatic premium blend over to backwashed 7-week-old coffee. What really kills the riffs, first and foremost, is the vocalist. Every time a half-decent riff pops up, the vocalist defiles the last of the riff’s decency by yielding a vocal performance no ear should ever experience, human or otherwise.

Unfortunately for this vocalist, it seems that he suffers from an accelerated condition of multiple personality disorder because his performance is as manic as a choir full of jungle animals. Of course he uses the good ol’ Brutal Death guttural growls, and that is fine and dandy. Yet, not every single vocal passage resonates of guttural goodness, in fact, most don’t. One of the more absurd vocal performances sounds like the vocalist from Korn getting strangled, which as a prospect is not so bad, in and of itself, but it becomes annoying quick. Sometimes spoken word slips into the songs every now and then, though it remains infrequent. However, the most prominent of this vocalist’s stylings sounds as if the guy who does vocals for the band Staind had a failed neuter operation. This last vocal design makes every single song intolerable. Nothing can salvage what little worth this album has after hearing those vocals; they are some kind of ill-conceived nightmare.

As for the rest of the music, there is not much to say. At times the bass guitar’s lo-fi amplitude egregiously overpowers to the point of dwarfing the other instruments in comparison. And with this album, struggling to hear what lies under the massive lo-fi is not even worth the effort. Measures with excessive lo-fi are somewhat infrequent though, so one has much more time to enjo… ahem… detest the music. The only reason this album has a rating above 5% is because it does have the occasional good and interesting groove. Some are reminiscent of Suffocation; others are taken from disparate genres of music such as Funk and Jazz. However, most of the time this band wanders in the territory of Immolation dissonance, and their interpretation of it just gives Immolation a bad name. At times the album has its well-crafted hi-hat patterns, its groovin’ double bass and down-tuned riffs, but all of that is few and far between. The bad stuff, on the other hand, is quite frequent. Just like the vocalist, the rest of the band plays aimlessly, creating a most unwelcome chaos. Usually the whiny castrated vocalist croons on top of an over-complicated and directionless riff, so there wasn’t much for the vocalist to ruin in the first place. Additionally, some of the riffs even possess Nu Metalesque qualities.

Most of the stuff on here, in terms of drum patterns and riffs, has zero value whatsoever, specifically because it has no comprehensible direction. No coherency exists between one measure to the next, there is no obvious beginning, or climax, or conclusion; just a whole lot of mush. It is one thing if the production itself makes the music mush, but quite another if the musicianship does so—Worship in no way suffers from poor production. If these guys stuck to their not-so-straightforward grooves, interesting hi-hat patterns, their brutal and spoken word vocals, this album might at least be passable, if not somewhat pleasing.

Here is a rough recap of the sounds on Worship:

Cool groove, whine, blasty blast blast, whine, guttural vocal, hi-hat intricacy/cool groove, whine, double bass, whine.