REMOTE VIEWING ‘STATE VIOLENCE’
On September 18th, London’s Remote Viewing released their fourth long-player State Violence via Human Worth, with a portion of the record’s profits (the record can be purchased here) donated to registered UK charity Trussell, which works around the country to fight poverty and end the need for food banks. The cover art, with its photograph courtesy of Devin Lunsford, is quietly unsettling, the backlit condensation on the inside of the passenger side window eerily reminiscent of post-suicide blood and splattered brain matter.
The record itself, born from outrage at the deteriorating state of the world, is, on the A-side at least, about as far from a pleasurable listening experience as you might have (by design). Side A is an endurance test of ponderous sludge, the listener made to feel like Salem farmer Giles Corey. Accused of witchcraft, Corey refused to enter a plea and was subjected to peine forte et dure, stone upon stone gradually heaped upon him until after three agonizing days he was ultimately crushed to death.
Giles Corey.
Deliberately ugly and punishing, if the A-side is the righteous fury of a band disgusted with the state of the world given abrasive auditory form, its counterpart is the B-side and its incorporation of melancholic melody, depressive drone, and doom. “HUMAN RIGHT$” had me envisioning an early-19th century London doomsayer on a soapbox in a dreary, drizzly pre-dawn setting, the track’s featuring of Hannah Asprey’s cello only adding to its dirge-like quality. “Accidental Holiday” is a study in contrasts, but contrasts which evolve in space. It opens with a section that sounds a lot like the melodic interludes on The Ghost Inside’s Fury and the Fallen Ones before returning to the sonic ground of the A-side; from there, the band combines the melody with a slower, doomier pace before going back to the caustic sludge again, ultimately segueing into the delicately beautiful, pensive outro that is “Birds of a Feather is on in 7 Minutes.”
PHOTO CREDIT: JAMES GREENOFF