In a faraway land, on a forgotten mountain top, stands a willowy, robed figure. The mysterious Australian David Thrussell (for he is SNOG) has weathered many storms, lashed by violent torrents and burned flying too close to the blistering sun.
Once notorious as a provocative musician, prescient satirist and counter-cultural bellwether, today, due to radical and ultimately unsuccessful treatment regimes, he is now essentially blind and incommunicado. Operating out of the artists’ colony of Montsalvat (Melbourne), he may not be a direct apocalyptic analogue to doomsday prophets like David Koresh and Ted Kaczynski, but the comparison could well be forgiven in this rugged mountain compound of spartan silence and esoteric study.
Dutifully surrounded by disciples and minders, the blind seer spends long days poring over arcane tomes and forgotten scriptures, in a frugal existence of fasting and contemplation. Day to day financial responsibilities and logistics fall under the stewardship of renowned creative therapist Dr. Ian White, whose tutelage has, after years of pain, set Thrussell on a spare but steady course. Mandated by Dr. White, every whispered utterance from our accidental messiah is recorded and elaborated into song by ace producer Vince Valentini and his crack team working deep in the caverns under Montsalvat.
It is not entirely clear if Thrussell is even aware of this new album, as his words are rare and usually of a mystical or heavily-medicated nature. The songs transcribed here speak of eyes that yearn to hear and ears that long to sing, an occult realm where the waking hours are a shadowy coma, a hypnotic narcosis whence dark puppeteers manipulate the fragile mass mind.
Worked through an army of battered drum machines and cranky synthesizers – then recorded in reverberant and rough-hewn sandstone halls – these songs capture an opiated soul that drifts like smoke through worlds both above and below, battles both good and, most certainly, evil.
Amidst the titanic struggle between light and dark, played out by those few awake and the many, many asleep – take these humble offerings of solace and song back to your world. Sing them loud and let them grow.
A Revolt Against The Modern World.
A Purge of The Demiurge.
Hymns for The Hypnotic.
Eight Offerings for The Undead.
EIGHT OFFERINGS FOR THE UNDEAD
TRACKLISTING
1 Call Me Cynical 6:22
2 The Armies Of The Undead 6:15
3 The Brain-Dead Hipster Shuffle 3:20
4 Domesticated 5:42
5 (I Am Not) An Algorithm 5:02
6 The Masque Of Evil 5:08
7 Jaded 4:59
8 Nothin’ 7:04
new album
LP / CD / digital
out now
[Metropolis Records / Lightarmour Editions]
available from
schmerkindustries.bandcamp.com/album/eight-offerings-for-the-undead
includes
THE MASQUE OF EVIL
video
youtu.be/rLoE0hev9-Q
