Another near-perfect Prurient disc.
Robert P. Beveridge | Cleveland, OH | 01/25/2007
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Prurient, Pleasure Ground (Load, 2006)
Anyone who's been reading my reviews for more than a couple of years knows that where Dominick Fernow is concerned, I am a raving, drooling loony, a shameless sycophant who exists for nothing but the news that someday there will be a new Prurient album. (Or, even better, a new Football Rabbit album, but that's neither here nor there.) Every once in a while, Fernow fulfills my need for more slabs of digitized tin, most recently with Pleasure Ground. And, as usual, Prurient have fulfilled my expectations (which are orders of magnitude higher than my expectations for any other act out there) and then some.
I spend much of my time listening to loud, nasty, brutal, violent stuff that sounds like a firefight in a steel mill. So when I say something makes my head hurt, it means something entirely different than it would if, say, Michael Flatley said something made his head hurt (or, god help us, if Britney Spears said the same thing). I'm used to this sort of thing. I can listen to the infamous The 150 Murderous Passions album without batting an eyelash-- on infinite repeat. (I used to do it on the bus to keep people away from me.) In fact, there are a total of three albums in my entire collection that made my head hurt: the untitled Merzbow/Slugbait split released by Dirter Promotions in 1997, Caldwell's Disregarded cassette from 2001, and now Pleasure Ground. The first two have long held elevated status in my collection, so needless to say this one pretty much rocketed to the top of the must-play charts from the moment I dropped it in the CD player.
Four tracks, all hovering around eleven and a half minutes, give or take a minute. Fernow starts off with the intent to tear your eardrums apart with "Military Road"; no buildup here, he attacks from the get-go. "Military Road" may be the recorded track closest to the live performances I've seen from Prurient, an all-out sonic assault leaving you little, if any, room to breathe.
The album quiets down after that, with the low point being "Outdoorsman/Indestructible," the third track, which grumbles along ominously with the same relentlessness as "Military Road," except now the thing that was tearing your flesh from your skull is stalking you from the shadows.
This is a scary, dangerous album that will make your head hurt and your friends avoid you. In other words, you must have it, and you must have it now. ****
"
Track Listings (4) - Disc #1