It is my strongly-held belief that if you put a gun to Chris Spencer’s head and demanded he play music that does NOT sound like Unsane he would simply blink slowly and slightly mockingly at you before launching into a big, crunching, industrialized riff and emitting a strained, ugly howl.
You would, of course, be forced to paint the wall with his brains, but you’d also have to admit to yourself that, heck, the guy has a style and he’s sticking to it.
Know what, though? This is fine with me. I have been listening to Unsane for a long while now, and I will continue to do so. This also goes for the various affiliated bands that, by and large, sound like Chris Spencer bands even if they are not, in fact, Chris Spencer bands (hi, that Pigs LP).
Human Impact is a Chris Spencer band, and ‘Gone Dark’ is their second album. It largely hinges on big, crunching, industrialized riffs and strained, ugly howls. Joshing aside, though, this isn’t entirely Unsane 2.0. Jim Coleman’s fractured electronics add texture and mood, by turns oily, coruscating and needlingly playful. These elements lend the album a gritty, cinematic edge – a sort of brutalist film noir setting, for the kind of feature that might offer lingering shots of scattered teeth glittering like fake diamonds in trash-filled back alleys, or oily puddles of water reflecting the flickering neon signs of clip joints and porn shops.
Everything rolls inexorably forth, seemingly running on fumes and disgust. The pain and the contempt and the desperation all feel tangible, as though they’ve been imbued with physical properties. Blow your nose or spit something in the sink after listening to it, and you expect your snot to be streaked with grey particulate. That, and perhaps a little blood.
It’s tired and it’s vicious, and you get the sense that maybe, too, it’s tired of being vicious. This said, it still goes ahead and sticks a fucking screwdriver in the side of your neck.