The Profane Joys of Satanic Panic Lyrics and Other Songs – eNuminous & Archimedes (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Well, that’s a bit different. I get so used to eNuminous & Archimedes albums, as eclectic, experimental and unsecondguessable as they are, having a specific sonic tone or musical temperment, perhaps blending more drifting sounds with considered textures, and even when dealing with music of volume and velocity, building gradually into such deliveries, that The Ballad of Paul’s Demise, which opens this new long-long-long player, comes as a bit of a shock.

A full minute of raw and raucous and rollicking rock…not just rock but screaming metal salvos and screaming metal vocalists…before things calm down, head down some more groove-orientated pathways, and you realise that perhaps things aren’t too far away from the standard e&A pitch, if there is indeed such a thing, as you thought.

Sure, A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You does wander, for the most part, some similarly intense and incendiary sonic byways, but after that, things settle down—a bit. Transitioning via Roll Around Blues’ lilting beat and drifting pathos, we head off into the unknown. Where else?

Televisions Marching Four Abreast is a conscious soul-rock salvo, all strutting tempo, snarling intent, and lots of space left with which to frame the vocals perfectly. The title track is a strange blend (I’m sure that’s a phrase that is much over-used when considering this band/project/algorithm/sentient sonic life form that is e&A) of clashing industrial sounds, relentless rock power and gothic groove and by the most extreme contrast (again, a common, go-to description for this sort of review) Orange Narcissus, or The Modern Caligula, (three guesses which popularist would be dictator that ones about) sounds like an operatic chorus being allowed to have their moment in the spotlight.

Shattered Hearts sees e&A getting its piano bar blues-soul groove on. It is a lovely and lilting piece of jazz seduction that suddenly pivots and reinvents itself into a jaunty and jiving piece of old-time musical hall reinvented for the modern age.

Just when you think that you have skirted past, travelled through and generally encountered all imaginable musical forms, Stealing the Night, Or, Airplane Rage offers you a robotic audiobook of a song, a reminder of the non-human and digital delights, the sonic ghosts in the machine that are inherent in eNuminous & Archimedes music making.

Talking of which, this weighty sonic tome ends with My Voice, which sounds like a Tex-mex border ballad from the 1930s, although I can’t quite get my head around what is going on with the vocals – are they sung in Spanish, playing backwards, digitally warped, perhaps all three effects happening at once? You don’t know what is wrong with the sonic picture until you bend your ear in and listen to things more closely, which is an excellent way of describing the eNuminous & Archimedes ethic as a whole.

Another e&A album, another strange sonic journey (but wonderfully so), and another example of modern music making being pushed into the future, some other alternative dimension, or a long-forgotten technical past, or the present in a different timeline…I don’t know. It all gets a bit too quantum, a bit too confusing for my brain. But what is life without some moments of glorious befuddlement? And for that, you need eNuminous & Archimedes.

Full You Tube playlist… HERE