Nekrasov's Mind-Melting Madness Shines on “Through Blind Acceptance the Nightmare Continues”

April 5, 2019

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It can be cliche to refer to black metal (or anything from the more extreme end of hardcore and noise) as “feral” or “bestial,” but only because so many of the sonic reference points we use to construct that designation have been played out. This is doubly frustrating because sometimes it is simply the ideal way to describe a piece of music, a description that feels ruined by outside forces and not the work itself.

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The new track from Nekrasov, “Through Blind Acceptance the Nightmare Continues” (premiering above), is of this latter group; electronic textures, including at one point a shrill screech like metal grinding on metal, underpins and elaborates on their post-second wave black metal, a particularly punky and loose approach to the sound, giving it that extra feral push. There is a sense of post-industrial chaos to the music, i.e. black metal not meant to reflect some interior or arboreal world but instead the terror and rage of the industrial. On this mark, Nekrasov succeeds capably.

Despite its resolute intensity, the song has a few moments and riffs that feel like they were designed to be extreme music earworms. Nekrasov never goes the overly melodic route; he seems well aware that energy drives this track and not traditional hooks, per se. But Nekrasov also provides enough breaks and ear-catching sounds that feel designed to perk the ear up. “Through Blind Acceptance the Nightmare Continues” is only three minutes long, but each of those three minutes feels like they were the tail-end of a half-hour opus.

As a result, this song is momentous in a brief span of time, with four discrete sections carried within, moving like an intensely miniature symphony. Things don’t move at grindcore pace, however; despite the tremolo picking, the track moves along at a decent trot and, despite its extreme sounds and the intense emotionality behind it, doesn’t feel like a terribly strenuous listen. It sets a high bar for the album; if it can deliver on the energy presented here, Nekrasov has a real ripper on his hands.

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Lust of Consciousness releases April 12th via Prosthetic Records. Stream two more tracks now on Bandcamp. Here’s a statement from Nekrasov:

Naturally one would assume the title to conjure ‘oh those muffin minds that don’t think oh-so critically and so woke AF like moi are passive to the horrors of the era. They accept with eyes filled with mud but I don’t, of course I don’t. Listen to all this noise, sense how rough and unforgiving and awkward the song is. The thematic nature of the project is, like, omg, so beyond common concepts and sub cultural pleasantries’ But, you know, it’s all blind acceptance. All of it.