Wreck and Reference - Absolute Still Life

After their four-track digital EP last year took them a little deeper into melancholic noisy ambiance without calling as frequently upon their abrasive metallic characteristics to assist them, the ever-experimental Wreck & Reference are back with a new full-length that finds them riding deeper into the strange ambient darkness with far less reliance on their experimental black metal training wheels than ever. The duo have always sought to provide as boundary-pushing and unconventional percussion and production to provide the foundation for Felix Skinner’s moaned and, occasionally, shouted abstract prose, and on this album, with more open, less claustrophobic instrumentals, Skinner’s performances and lyrics really become more of a focal point than they were when sharing the spotlight with gnarlier instrumentation on albums past. And this is not to say that the more electronic, darkwave-inspired instrumental backing is a mere wallpaper backdrop by comparison either. The group clearly spent their time refining their approach to the melancholic side of their sound, and the result is an album that captures that essence both musically and lyrically. The title of the album, “Absolute Still Life”, is a rather fitting and darkly comedic sum-up of the very cryptic scrawlings of perturbed prose from song to song. Skinner tends to depict these moments of contemplation on the fundamental flaws of man as well as of introspection on the flaws of oneself, often both together.

The album opens immediately with the defeated meditation upon a loss of control of one’s own life and surroundings with age on the song, “A Mirror” which the somber electronic beat and piano pairing do a fine job of upping the melancholy of. The band gets a bit heavier on the second song, “Sturdy Dawn”, which is one of my favorites on the album for how well the build of the ominous vocal echo samples, the industrial synth line in the middle, the harsher, bass-ier electronic drum beat, and the shouted verse at the end compliment the song’s frantic, stressful, yet natural stream of thought from one simile to another as if pouring out of a busy, anxious mind unable to focus. The following track, “Eris Came to Me at Night”, is another one of my favorites on the album; the song seems like it’s about a dissatisfaction with the results of giving in to insomniac urges and inspiration. The allusion to the golden apple of discord in Greek mythology (placed by Eris) that planted a seed of bickering that led to all out war among the gods is used to liken the speaker’s own inner voice of insecurity and dissatisfaction sparking this unrest with the subtle, simple suggestion of “you’re getting boring / you’re getting old”. And the song’s bass-line-driven mellow synth line and seductive electronic beat work great with Skinner’s dark, coaxing vocal delivery for the theme of the song.

Moving on from there, the song glitchy, eletro-twitch-laden “Stubborn Lake” features a flanger/autotune effect on Skinner’s voice, making it one of the more melodic songs on the album, and the strong bass foundation and electro tom percussion help add nice accents to the instrumental. The song seems to be about reprimanding the dwelling upon escapist fantasies of starting over, but I could very well be wrong, or at least very far off from what the band intended with the song’s lyrics. The album hits its first dud with the song “What Goes in and Comes Out”. I like the meditative lyrics about physical/physiological consumption and the effects on the body, but the instrumental side of things is just a little more skeletal than I would prefer. It feels like the band are operating at an energy-conserving minimum on this track, which they really don’t need to on this kind of album. The song gets fuller by the end with more electronic supplementation to the central droning piano motif, but the skeletal approach, combined with the monotonous vocal delivery, makes it not enough by the end.

The second side of the album takes it back with Skinner returning completely to the harsh vocal delivery that was a signature aspect of albums like Want and Youth over an industrial bass beat on the song “What Is a Gift”, which is one of the grimmest looks at death on the album, it being viewed as a welcome end to conforming/oppressive social structures. The song “In Uniform” is another one of my favorites. I love the transitions from the sexy minimal drum and bass beat to the somber string section and to the grating whirs of noise that come in later. It very much feels like the core of this project with its free and open expression of despair. The lyrics contrast this professing of resistance to injustice and the reality of watching or surrendering and joining in the ranks of injustice when the shit hits the fan. The album hits another dud right afterward though with the subtly bass-beat-driven “Dumb Forest”, whose meditation on rivers on a mountain I truly have no confident explanation for. It might be a bit about limited perspectives and worldviews, but it reads like a really incoherent proverb or kōan.

The song “Amends”, which serves as a meditation on false sympathy, finds Wreck and Reference in interesting territory once again, this time coming through with a bit of an indie electro-rock number akin to something like Casiotone for the Painfully Alone or The Microphones. Skinnner is actually singing on this one, but he keeps it entirely melancholic and within a narrow range, and it actually works to the song’s benefit. The album ends on a kind of nihilistic note with the song “Irony of Being Something”. I like the tense, subtle electronic rock beat of the song and the chimes that get worked in to the mix, and the way the meditation of the lyrics plays out into a sort of non-conclusion, which is far further than most go with nihilism these days.

All in all I’d say this is a pretty successful foray into the spacier, darkwavier side of the band’s aesthetic, made possible by consistently intriguing production that ties in well with the dark, depressive snapshots of contemplation the band soundtracks. There is a good amount of variety to keep it interesting from start to finish, and the top-notch songs the find the duo maximizing the best aspects of their sound far outweigh the couple of snoozers in the track list. It’s definitely the least metal project the band have released to date, but the metallic aspect of their sound was never the drawing force or the focal point, and they do well mostly without it here.

reeeeeeeeaaallly long shower/10