Disappears’ previous outing, the self-released ‘Kone’ EP suggested a band evolving rapidly and keen to push themselves into new territories. While 2011’s ‘Guider’ placed droning repetition at its core, and follow-up ‘Pre-Language’ in 2012 expanded the sound to incorporate garage and post-punk elements to powerful effect. ‘Kone’, however, was an altogether different proposition, and set a new benchmark for the band. With ‘Era’, they’ve managed to surpass it, but sustaining the intensity over the entire duration of an album.
Opener ‘Girl’ stand as the most obvious link between Disappears past and present, taking elements of the previous two albums and distilling them into a potent and snarling explosion that’s a hybrid of hypnotic drone rock and garage. There’s a strut and swagger to the seething, goth-tinged post-punk bleakness of ‘Power’ that sits somewhere between Bauhaus and Rozz Williams era Christian Death. It’s the perfect preface to the immense ‘Ultra’, a stark monument to postindustrial isolation. Brian Case delivers the lyrics in a detached monotone and the track builds to a bludgeoning repetition reminiscent of Swans.
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The title track marks a distinct change of angle, and even boasts a distinct chorus, but with its chiming chorus-laden spectral guitars, it’s still in perfect keeping with the album’s new wave feel. ‘Weird House’ ups the tempo and brings the percussion to the fore before the seven-minute ‘Elite Typical’ plunges headlong back into dark, stark territories. Taut, tense, murky and claustrophobic, it snakes its way through desolate back streets and barren urban wastelands to emerge bruised and psychologically damaged, crawling to the subterranean muttering of the deathly oppressive ‘New House’. It’s not a shiny new penthouse, but a crumbling high-rise repurposed as a morgue for the city’s dead souls and a harrowing conclusion to a staggeringly intense work. Put simply, this album is fucking incredible. Album of the year.
Disappears Online
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