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Rob Miller, as is his right, has declined to provide lyrics for the new Amebix album, Sonic Mass. Therefore, I am left to my own devices to discern what it’s actually about. Unfortunately, I have not yet succeeded. I do not understand what “God of the Grain” is about, nor how it is connected with the “Shield Wall”, or “Here Come the Wolf”, or, really, any other track on the album.
I may not comprehend the album, but I do think that I feel what it means, that I apprehend it. For me, old Amebix created a feeling that was unlike anything any other band produced. Within the same album, often within the same song, the lyrics and music were angry, melancholy, disgusted, sad to the point of desperation; yet the tone could suddenly turn to one of empowerment, righteous defiance, even hope. I think that Amebix is the sound right before a man dies, right before Man dies. It is the sound of giving up to the inevitable, mourning the loss. But it is also the sound of a person saying, “I will not give up. Though I may suffer, no one may take my dignity or my rights. I am free, I know what is true, and I cannot be broken.” Old Amebix is a gutcheck for me. It makes me stop and think about where I am and who I am, about where and who I want to be, and then it boots me in the ass, down the road to improving myself and the world around me.
On the basis of my emotional understanding, Sonic Mass is the best record Amebix have ever created, shattering my expectations. It feels like Monolith and Arise! and everything else they’ve released, but it feels stronger and more alive, and it must be treated as an album rather than a collection of songs. Amebix rode ‘The Chug’ like no other band before or since, turning it into art, rather than just a crude sonic device for inducing moshing or headbanging. With Sonic Mass, they finally have a production with both power and clarity, and, though I feel bad about saying this, they finally have a drummer to match their ambitions. Through age and experience, or a shift in mentality, or perhaps a combination, the songwriting has tightened, and yet the band’s attack has been leavened with measures of subtlety and calm, widening the music’s emotional range.
It is entirely appropriate that Sonic Mass feels like Amebix always did, because so little has changed in the last two decades. How little we have learned, how little we have grown! We spill our blood in the sands of the Middle East, the jungles of South America and south-east Asia, the mountains of Afghanistan, a thousand other places. Still we slaughter in the name of gods, hollow principles, political differences, the color of skin, make-believe lines on maps. Still we squabble over precious resources, only to squander them. We slowly murder the only home we have ever known.
We still gas ourselves in death camps.
Are we worth saving? Can we save ourselves from ourselves?
Amebix have created a rare and precious thing: a piece of art that makes us think and feel. We need to feel disgust and disappointment at ourselves, and at our rotting, violent excuse for a civilization, but we also need the tiny seed of hope that has been planted. There is a better way.
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Amebix – “God of the Grain”
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Amebix – “Knights of the Black Sun”
BUY SONIC MASS
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I’ve heard a lot of mixed reviews about this one. Your review makes me want to check it out even more so thanks!
I think this is a really strong album, but it doesn’t quite capture for me the same feeling that Arise and Monolith do. I think you completely nail Amebix’s sound when you write that it’s “angry, melancholy, disgusted, sad to the point of desperation; yet the tone could suddenly turn to one of empowerment, righteous defiance, even hope” (I’d also say that what made and makes Amebix unique among punk bands and puts them firmly in the metal camp–assuming that we want to delineate genres like that–is that while they were politically more or less in line with other punk bands, they added a mythic dimension to this that made them utterly different than, say, Crass or Flux of Pink Indians–when I listen to Arise I think of Bathory more than I do of other punk bands of the time and region) but I think one of the things that made them so convincing were these really ragged and raw production values. Arise sounds and feels like being defiant at the end of the world. I haven’t completely wrapped my head around Sonic Mass yet, but the production turns me off. It sounds like the band is in a studio–which isn’t to say that it’s overproduced like far too many metal records, because it isn’t–but it doesn’t have that same apocalyptic feel. There isn’t anything in Sonic Mass that gives me the chills like lines like “The sky was tinted with yellow and black/And the air smelled like Dachau today” do even though I’ve been listening to Arise pretty consistently for well over ten years. Will Sonic Mass hold up as well as Arise and Monolith have? We’ll have to see in a few years time–in the meantime, it’s a very fine listen.
I love Amebix, I love Amebix ripoff bands, Axegrinder is the template of how to do a ‘worship’ band. But I’ve always been disheartened by reunions. Bands break up for a reason and cannot recapture the past magic. Listened to the record a few times and my anti-reunion stance has not changed one bit. In fact, it’s strengthened it.
The modern production takes away the aggression. The curtain has been pulled back and they’re not really a gang of caveman dreadlocked bikers. The passionate off-key singing of ‘Drink and Be Merry’ has given way to calculated horrible middle-of-the-alt-rock-road vocals of ‘Knights of the Black Sun’. If this had been cut down to an EP, it would work. There’s a lot of fat to be trimmed here. And Mayorga’s drums are way over produced for the Amebix sound.
The production is definitely a part of old amebix’s sound, but i think that if they’d had a choice in the matter, they would have gone for a better sound. Sonic mass gave me chills the first time i heard it. Knights in particular still does. When the Baron calls out ‘the great god fear is dead!’ And ‘from the roof tops calling you were always free!’ It is just so perfect that words fail me.
I thought it better and fair not to have expectations going in to this album.I couldn’t be more pleased with the results.They didn’t need to make Monolith 2 and this album holds up against both of their albums gracefully.It deserves album of the year for many reasons but mainly because after 23 years you wouldn’t expect a band to be able to do something this amazing.
The worst thing you can say about the modern production is it makes them sound like Killing Joke…. which at least for all the guys in Amebix likely wouldn’t be an insult at all.
Lyrically there’s something very powerful about Amebix and it’s still at play here. Graeme nailed it well. It’s a struggle that could be found in a soldier fighting alongside William Wallace to a punk protesting Thatcher’s England to a post-apocalyptic survivor trying to live morally in a lawless time.
I don’t think the lack of a lyrics sheet should be too much of a hindrance to figuring out what the songs are about; their vocals aren’t unintelligible and the songs are pretty straight forward.
God of the Grain:
‘my story ever was the same / I was killed by broken men[?] / and on the third day rose again / I am the god within the grain’…
‘I am the god of the grain / I live, I die… / and I am reborn again’
‘I am the center of the flame / every age shall know my name’
‘Dionysus, Osiris, Adonis, Jesus’
Shield Wall has no lyrics. There’s the sound of metal striking metal behind the music. Look it up on Wikipedia.
Here Comes the Wolf:
‘once more the land became a wilderness of superstitious night/ and from the forest deep came tales of children reared by wolves/ their mother raped and left in shame / lost in the woods they dreamed revenge’
‘they are murders / and they come for us / between the beast and man we die / here come the wolf’
more revenge follows…
This feels like a lazy review. If you want to understand what the songs are about you just need to spend a bit of time with the album and do some research.
I think RSJ’s point is that you don’t even need to know the lyrics – the music conveys the message (which he describes with real eloquence) more powerfully. I thought this was a brilliant and moving review of a singular record, one which will vie with PJ Harvey, Primordial and WITTR for best of the year.
No doubt. Amebix writes evocative music. They’re good at it. I got that point in the review, and I agree.
However, the first paragraph implies that in the absence of a lyrics sheet the meanings behind the songs are cryptic or subtle. I disagree with that.
the Legion left and with them took the dying light,once more the land became a Wilderness of superstitious night,and from the forest deep,came tales of children reared by wolves,their mother raped and left in shame whilst in the womb they dreamed revenge,they dreamed revenge.
they are murderous,and they come for us,between the beast and man we die…here come the Wolf.
a message came,a plea for help against the Beast,but no-one came and night on night the forest rang,with chilling cries as decimation took its course..oh Gods have mercy on our souls!with every night the terror comes.
see how they run….
erm,any one here ever read Tennyson…the coming of the King?
I thought that Knights of the Black Sun was horrible, and the other track linked hear i still havent heard because it says it was taken down by amebix… Which is horribly disgusting. I cant believe Rob Miller is pulling a Metallica. thats unbelievably gross. Fuck that shit. I cant believe I’ve read any praise for this shit at all… I mean, I expected a cleaner production and didnt really have too much expectation at all musically, its been 20something years after all. They SHOULDNT sound the same as before… but damn, man. this shit is horrible, and with them pulling it off of Youtube, I’ve officially lost all respect for them as musicians and people…
The nerve, not to make their horrible music available for free! Assholes!
I think the way you describe Ambeix, is more akin to Agalloch.
you seem more upset about not being able to see a youtube link than any critique on the album ‘Nate’,personally i dont see the problem if the artist wants to take down their own work its their call,bet they had a damn good reason.anyway….great album