Originally posted by brightoffski
And apart from D Mullholand (please add more thoughts though!), what does everyone think of 34.788%...Complete? The controversy always fascinates me.
'34.788%...Complete' is like a more hope-ridden version of Blade Runner set to metal music. The futuristic sounds and the nihilistic lyrics mix perfectly with MDB's devastated and melancholic riffing, I can immerse myself in this world and go astray...
In every song we are presented pictures and scenes from this meta-urban banal nightmare. 'Children play with broken glass, kill themselves for a laugh'... This world has its imprints on every story, even on the most noble ones, like 'Der Uberlebende' - I see a picture of a lone immortal human who leads an abandoned life, a man who forgot even who he is, existing in emotional devastation and living from day to day on fragments of old memories ('I have seen them, I have watched them all fall') - nothing can surprise him anymore. He'll exist forever.
Even the narrators in the songs, as played by Aaron, are unsympathetic to the listener - like in the end of 'The Stance of Evander Sinque'. After we see the tragic end of this man, as a conclusion of a one-versus-crowd conflict extended to the verge of hyper-realism, the narrator says : 'Who was he, this crazy man ? Just a loser, to the end !..'
'Heroin Chic' is MDB's doomiest song. Not a slight beam of hope. This is pure doom. Like a W. Burroughs 'Naked Lunch' presented as a music/sound/stream of consciousness-collage, all elements fit - the noise, the background female vocals... 'Hope it rains. Hope it rains a lot'... the character has lost all personality and forgot his human essence, now he is 'shit and scum' like everybody else around him - 'Life for life is just the way it's at... I don't remember the last time I laughed...' No beginning and no ending, this is his life every single day.
With 'Basic Level Erotica' we are shown a way to escape this grim reality, but the way is only an illusion, a temporary remedy... The ending riff is repeated to no end, like we want to force our stay in this illusion, to extend the release, knowing it is impossible...
'Under My Wings And Into Youe Arms' is an enigmatic song. We sense an approach to a turning point, an intention, a wish to escape, but there is no definite ending, and we're left only to guess if this was a moment of hope, and if there is an exit...
All songs are great, it's a grossly underrated masterpiece. It's imperfect, but impressive. A shame most 'metal heads' let themselves be turned off by the electronic sounds and are lured by their own limitations into thinking that this must've been a 'sell-out'. Very unfortunate, that even the band became too scared of what they've done. But they've redeemed their temporary fears with the excellent 'TLATEOTW' and now, hopefully, 'The Dreadful Hours'.
(Sorry if this message seemed like an LSD-trip, I'm in a state of trance after I returned from this classical concert today... Some munificent music there was...)
D Mullholand
\m/
