Hatred Surge “Servant” b/w “Bestial” single (2008)
This is a really cool idea for a record: a two-song single, packaged in a generic “Singles Club” sleeve, from a band whose first record crammed 9 songs into about 6 minutes, and who play a style that certainly doesn’t conform to the A-side/B-side logic of the 45 rpm single. (One always says that “Reggae is a singles genre,” or powerpop certainly.) But this counterintuitive aesthetic works, as an aesthetic. It sure beats the 80-song discography CD, and the idea of composing a “hit” in this style must have been a creative challenge.
I haven’t completely kept up on the growing Hatred Surge discography since that first record, so I can’t say if this is the crown jewel of HS’ oeuvre or no. It sounds and looks more like an experiment or one-off departure.
Ironically, the presentation, while minimal and generic, trumps the actual music here. The A-side is all grinding build-up, threatening to explode at any second, but consisting in just some angry shouting over feedback. When the song lurches into a full-on blastbeat, however, longtime fans of hardcore will undoubtedly feel that something is lacking at this moment: a riff! But one must give credit where it is due: this is a remarkable piece of tension and restraint, even of teasing. And it is really a mind-fuck if one is expecting a classic punk single. “Orgasm Addict” it ain’t.
The B-side would not have been out of place as an ambient, in-between track on say, a Depeche Mode or Nine Inch Nails album. Also no riff.
Now, I could have said all this much more positively, but said the same thing: Where previously Hatred Surge blasted us with jaw-dropping, nihilistic brutality and speed, on this single, HS brings out a different kind of brutal: slow, demented, and heavy as fuck. Taking over the Swans influence in grindcore where Napalm Death left off (on their BBC Session version of “Multinational Corporations”), HS admittedly will try the patience of their speed-crazed following, but will delight openminded listeners willing to descend into a darker, sonically challenging abyss.
And that would be exactly the same review, and every word of it would be true. But here we come upon Law #1 of reviewing: a review is not a description. Yes, there is an artier, slower, heavier influence here. And certain people’s ears will perk up and they will say, “I like slower, artier, heavier things. I’m that kind of guy.” And certain other people will say, “I like fast music! Grrrr! 1000 miles a minute, that’s me!” But then we need not ever listen to this record, we could just describe it, in the manner of a press release. Quality (or particularity) would be left totally out of the picture.
My contention is, this record (personified) would be happy with that—with being classified, and being “polarizing” and “experimental,” and with not necessarily being listened to a great deal. The description (in either version given above) trumps the actual 5 minutes of music. And how could it not? On one hand, there’s no riffs; on the other hand, “there’s not even any riffs, maaan. Just NOISE.” Same deal. I don’t take sides.
What I do take sides on is: when I buy a record, ideally I would like to play it into the ground. I want to completely absorb it. But the experience of this single is mapped out for you in advance: you are in or you are out. No one will be humming these tunes or putting them on mixtapes for crushes. The whole record is a parti pris.
But this isn’t the premier of The Rite of Spring that we are talking about. Art (real art) demands to be worked-through. In something like Finnegan’s Wake, the reader has to slog through hundreds and hundreds of pages—of very *different* nonsense—to have moved through the artistic challenge Joyce puts forth. But this is more like one of those boring, long Andy Warhol movies: you can skip actually going through it all.
You may say, Ben, you are reading too much into this. It’s just a 2-song single! In that case, I would have preferred that it “rock.” I do not like the idea that I lead a deeper, darker, more “brutal” and “damaged” life than I really do, just because I know the WORDS “brutal” and “damaged.”
I’ll conclude by saying that I never did care for Bastard Noise, or Swans, or any industrial music, and that perhaps this is “just not for me,” as long as the caveat above remains: art should take me on a journey of difference.
