A Place To Bury Strangers – Synthesizer – Album Review
by Killian Laher

Once upon a time, A Place To Bury Strangers were known as New York’s loudest band.  I’m not sure whether they still hold that title, but despite its name, their sixth album is as loud as you might expect.  It opens with the arresting Disgust, which starts with an incredibly harsh high-pitched squall for the first 20 seconds or so, barrelling out of the speakers, before relentlessly pounding for the remaining four minutes of its intense, gothic atmosphere.  Bleakness is very much the default here.  The thrilling Fear of Transformation is a bit of departure, pulsating black-as-fuck electro-pop.  It’s very in your face, pounding and grinding with guttural moans.  Join The Crowd is slightly less intense, what you might call ‘death disco’ with its insistent beat, calling to mind Primal Scream at their darkest.  Also relatively accessible is the dark, moody You Got Me, where you can almost make out the words!

Any calm is shattered by the ear-splitting Bad Idea which is one angry howl of a track, with an almost unbearable climax.  The aptly-titled It’s Too Much is the noisiest pop you can imagine, a catchy melody obscured with extremely noisy production.  It sounds like Isn’t Anything-era My Bloody Valentine crossed with Joy Division on mandrax.  The synthy Plastic Future has lots of energy tethered to a prominent bassline, and it’s followed by the ridiculously intense, yet thrilling Have You Ever Been In Love which features a fine breakdown in the middle where a pounding bassline takes centre stage before another migraine-inducing ending.  The album finishes with the epic Comfort Never Comes, which builds gradually over nearly eight minutes.  Despite its length, it’s easier to digest than parts of the rest of the album, the song is given time to gradually unfurl into an inevitable conclusion of white noise.

A Place To Bury Strangers are unrelenting in their commitment to noise and have carved themselves out a bleak, deafening niche in the rock world.

Disgust