By John Gentile
Punknews.org
July 26th, 2013
One of the reasons that Rudimentary Peni’s Cacophony is so
effective is because it’s impossible to determine its purpose. Indeed,
it’s a nigh impossible task to determine what it even is. Instead of having a focal point or direct message, Cacophony
is a series of riddles and pathways that wrap around themselves, double
back, and sometimes don’t lead to anywhere. But what makes the secret
of the album most appealing is that within the intertwined messages, it
seems that there has to be a core idea, no matter ultimately horrifying.
As is a motif for the band, Cacophony found Rudimentary Peni reuniting after a tragedy had befallen them. 1983’s Death Church was well-received in anarcho-punk circles; rampage of an album, Death Church
was a blast of 21 minute-long songs that cloaked political messages in
gothic and fatalist vestiges. In fact, some of the songs weren’t
analogues for politics at all, but were direct assessments of the human
condition and oblivion. The record still had enough traces of Crass for
the punks to like it; though nearly every song threatened to break out
of the classic punk structure and birth something entirely new.
How gruesome is it, that Rudimentary Peni’s new birth followed a near
death scare of a band member, albeit one caused by rapid growth. Barely
into his twenties, bassist Grant Matthews was diagnosed with cancer, and
if you believe vocalist Nick Blinko’s account in his semi-non-fictional
book The Primal Screamer, then the cancer very nearly killed Matthews.
Instead of retreating from their fatalistic imagery after Matthews
recovered, the group plunged headfirst into death concepts and in 1987
released the spiraling masterpiece that is Cacophony. Rudimentary
Peni built the thematic structure around the writings of horror master
H.P. Lovecraft, intertwining many of the Lovecraftian beasts and even
Lovecraft himself into the album. “Crazed Couplet” features the famous
Lovecraft prayer “That is not dead which can eternal lie / and with strange aeons even death may die” recited over and over in increasingly distorted vocal loops while Blinko screams “Dead! Dead! Dead!”
over and over. On “Shard,” Cthulhu himself shows up after Blinko,
directly addressing the listener, begs that someone understand what he
is getting at.
But most deftly, on “Imps of the Perverse,” a critic of Lovecraft rants
off a list of reasons why Lovecraft wasted his talent, which could have
been better put to use in the guidebook industry. The implication being
of course that Lovecraft was so far ahead of his contemporaries that
they could not perceive the strange heights he had reached. It would be
hard to ignore the possibility that Lovecraft is merely a proxy for
Blinko… and with good reason.
Just as the lyrical content of Cacophony was radial and
confusing, the music was doubly as wild. Though the band still ripped
through incredibly short, choppy riff punk songs, they are bound by
ghostly interludes that add meaning and contrast to the lyrics. At one
point, the speaker is deafened by thousands of chattering teeth. At
another, hissing creatures surround the headphones. On “American
Anglophile in the World Turned Upside Down” two speakers loop their
conversation over one another, though it doesn’t seem as though they are
talking to each other as much as trying to drown each other out.
Just because songs start with a power riff doesn’t mean that they won’t
collapse at any minute, even mid-passage. Just because a song starts
with a speaker giving an in-depth description of how he plans to
redouble his efforts studying the dark arts doesn’t mean that a beast
won’t suddenly spring from the walls and announce “Things have learned to walk that ought to crawl”, only to be followed by a song with lyrics consisting only of “Arkham Hearse” moaned 11 times in a row.
What makes Cacophony most impressive is that despite the shards
of songs, the constant twisting nature of the music and its constant
state of flux, is that it still rocks. The concept of madness is
often the mandate when talking about Rudimentary Peni, but here one
wonders if the band are really playing a ruse. Just when the album seems
ready to spin out of normal understanding, with perhaps an English
professor pontificating or a voice stretched out to a twenty-second
moan, the band rip back with a punchy riff that would stack up to any
Ramones or Clash banger there is. Somehow, the band knew how to draw
close to madness and peer over, but never fall all the way in, merely
taking in the abyss without succumbing.
The Southern Records remasters really help out the original issues. The
original releases had a bit of a muddy sound due to the technology of
the day, which was a shame, because it muted a little bit of the chaotic
movements which are stacked five and six stories high on this release.
The remasters sharpen the sound, but maintain the texture of the
original music, making these songs of darkness as clear as they can be.
But why are Rudimentary Peni so fixated on Lovecraft? Do they just like
his scary stories, or do they truly feel that he understood the true
darkness of the universe? Do we even understand the deteriorating mind
of Blinko, who would be committed to a mental hospital around the time
of this album’s initial release? It is somewhat telling that at the end
of this chaos, Blinko calls out in search of a being that can understand
how he feels, and the only thing that answers is Lovecraft’s great
horror, Cthulhu, a beast that existed to only feast upon, enslave, and
destroy the universe.
A true masterpiece, unparalleled in its expression. Completely, utterly, horrifically, essential.
