Rudimentary Peni’s appropriately titled second studio album – originally released in 1989 – is potent, visceral, edgy, and batshit crazy. It’s got a running time of 43 minutes and a total of 30 tracks for a start. It’s more listenable and less overtly obsessive than the recently re-released ‘Pope Adrian’, which followed in 1992, but obsession is still the key to its creation. Perversely – in every sense – the chaotic ‘Cacophony’ can be broadly considered a concept album, in that revolves (obsessively) around the work of H.P. Lovecraft. Although inspired in its entirety by Lovecraft and his writing, from the titles to the lyrics, it’s not a simple case of putting his words to music though, and the brain-bending result is warped and anarchic and often theatrical and flamboyant.
Nick Blinko leaps maniacally – and extraordinarily convincingly – between characters. One doesn’t so much get the impression he’s a great actor, but that he’s actually inhabiting their beings, which is probably not so far from the truth. And although ‘Cacophony’ is a punk album, it certainly finds one of the genre’s more unusual and eccentric exponents pushing the parameters: ‘The Evil Clergyman’ brings a gothic, new wave edge feel to the driving punk sound that predominates, while ‘Crazed Couplet’ could be reasonably described as Shakespearean death metal.
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It’s definitely not your standard punk shoutalong, with square three-chord riffs chugged out over standard 4/4 rhythms. With ‘Cacophony’ Rudimentary Peni test the listener in many ways. Those willing to face the strange, to tangle with the abrasive guitars that encircle the cerebral and off-the-wall work, will be greatly rewarded, for this is without question a work of warped genius.
Rudimentary Peni Online
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