If ever an album's title lets you know exactly where it's coming from Chronic Quicksand Depression Morning is it. This is the second album by Assassun that's one of Alexander Leonard Donat's many groups, they are dark twisted electro glitchcore industrial darkness personified.
The album opens with Excavate a song that marries strings and synths with dark down at heart lyrics, trying to raise themselves from the torpor, the darkness is closing in, the cost of living crisis is at danger point, the drum machine is doing all sorts of things to help Excavate just what you need to survive.
Unfold On My Chest is fraught tense dark industrial synth pop single, that leaves a tight knot in your chest, at the pain of the times we are trying to survive, worrying about how to feed your family, as the noises babble in your head like so many voices all asking for help at once.
At Gunpoint has shotgun drumming storming the gates of hell, as the windows break, as you wonder if there is a way out, or are you trapped in this hell, dodging bullets of nasty electro glitch core.
Fear Doubled asks troubling questions of the fear mongers, who seek to build pointless walls like modern day Hadrian's, glitchy sounds of the dispossessed trying to dodge the madness, getting to a place of safety and hope in this seemingly hopeless era we are living or dying through.
Amniotic Concrete takes a nosebleed techno extreme beats meets dark wave synths in a cocoon of worry, trying to break through that concrete to allow the fluid to flow, bringing us all back to life again in the hope of some happy co-existence that's currently denied.
The Ivories And I is slow elegiac synths with metronomic beats with a sad tale of the relationship between the pianist and his keyboard.
Shapeshifters takes some early 80's electro sounds that could have been lifted from any classic EBM tune, marrying it to glitchy odd noises with the disjointed shape shifting imagery in the lyrics being spat at us, as we shift into other dimensions of consciousness.
Torpescence is a word you instinctively know the meaning of, even though it may not be real, the Torpor has become all-encompassing, this is the soundtrack to the walls closing in, your mind shattering beyond the help of normal anti-depressants.
Joie De Vivre has left the building, you struggle to get out of bed, nothing works, all you want to do is bury your head in the sand as the darkness doubles, as Alex starts to repeat the albums title over and over like his mantra to stave off defeat.
Sun Gloating has the most upbeat sounding tune on the album, the lyrics however remain in the pit of despond as the Sun beats down heating the globe as mans folly becomes ever clearer, unity is all that can save us, a commodity that seems ever scarcer.
The album closes with Down On Me a title that can be read more than one way, in this case the synth washes, dark foreboding beats, general air of dissolution, makes clear that this is about how life has stopped encouraging you to be better, but is totally Down On You as you suffocate in the dysfunctional world we are enmeshed within.
Find out more at Bandcamp link
