(Andy Synn condemns you all to suffer with the new album from Private Prisons)
You know us here at NCS (and if you don’t, why not?)… when it comes to writing about new music we’ll almost always favour writing about lesser-known bands over bigger and more notorious names.
It’s become almost a perverse sort of compulsion at this point, letting other sites (for the most part, anyway) handle the “big hitters” while we focus on the weirdos, freaks, and underdogs (not always in that order).
And today’s review is a prime example of this, because nothing says “underground” than the visceral, venom-spewing blackened sludgery of Private Prisons.
As befits their chosen moniker, Private Prisons have always been an ugly, unforgiving proposition, one designed to wear you down and crush your resistance through sheer, abrasive attrition.
But on Theo Lacy (set for release next week on the 4th of September) they’ve managed to achieve a new level of ugliness and viciousness, one dedicated – in the band’s own words – to:
…Orange County, its gratuitous excess at the expense of others, and the selfishness of its people.
In practice this manifests in a series of vitriolic denunciations – not so much a sequence of songs as a procession of howling tirades – of a culture that prioritises gluttony and excess, merciless militarism and callous consumerism, set to a soundtrack of grisly, grime-drenched distortion, doom-laden, gorge-raising grooves, and spiteful, acid-soaked intensity that shares a not-insignificant amount of musical DNA with the likes of Lord Mantis, Neurosis, and Primitive Man.
From the blazing barbarism and sickeningly sludgy crawl of “Between Bars” (sample lyric: “Everyone I know is incarcerated in their skin / Locked inside themselves“) to the climactic, slow-motion apocalypse of “Skulls”, Theo Lacy pulls no punches and (no pun intended) takes no prisoners, each and every track seeking to choke, beat, and batter the listener into submission.
This does, of course, make for an extremely demanding listen, and not one for the faint of heart, as caustic cuts like the heaving Black/Sludge hybrid that is “Everything/Nothing” (with its final, vomitous declamation of “I have everything / I am nothing / I am not free“) and the frenzied, filth-infested “Shot Up/Shot Down” (“Blood on our hands / Boots on our necks / Cuffs on our wrists“) are as lyrically nihilistic as they are musically sadistic, meaning that over-exposure carries with it a real risk of catastrophic overdose.
And, indeed, it might actually be that Theo Lacy offers up a little too much of a good thing – or, to be more accurate, a very bad thing – as the sheer oppressive weight of the album (as epitomised by the titanic Drone-Doom monstrosity that is poisonous penultimate track “Tyrants”, whose sinister, cello-laced climax might perhaps have served even better as the album’s finale), stretched out over a solid, suffocating hour, can be a little hard to handle, even for the most exprienced of audio-addicts.
Thankfully there are these occasional moments of absolutely miserable melody (the simmering intro of “Pigs”, for example, provides a striking contrast to the song’s scorching conclusion) or bleak, brooding atmosphere (“No More”) which don’t so much lighten the mood as they do, at the very least, provide a momentary breather in between brutal bludgeonings, allowing the listener the occasional opportunity to try and fortify themselves before the next assault.
Consider yourselves, therefore, duly warned… because Theo Lacy is designed to hurt, without remorse or restraint.