Black Eyes: Hostile Design
I don’t remember how exactly I got into Black Eyes. I know I was in high school, and I think I found one of their CDs in the used bin at my local record store (shout out to Luna Music in Indianapolis, for all the Midwestern readers). The album was called ‘Cough’, and the cover art was a collage of a Bible verse overlaid with a screaming man’s face and a gold checkerboard pattern. The album’s opener ‘Cough, Cough’ is a plodding dirge of drums, metallic clanging, dubby reverb, and atonal chanting vocals; which then transitions into a chaotic explosion of saxophone, drums, and shouting as the second track, “Eternal Life” begins. The album combined a lot of the genres that I was getting into at the time, and it stayed in pretty heavy rotation in my car. It earned an array of comments from my passengers, such as “What the fuck are you listening to?” and “Turn that shit off”, and my personal favorite, “This isn’t even music!”
In the years since first discovering Black Eyes, I’ve often hailed them as one of the greatest short-lived bands of all time. They’ve always been, to me, one of those genre-defining bands that comes onto a scene, drops one or two perfect records, and then vanishes as suddenly as they appeared. Other artists in this category would be My Bloody Valentine, Botch, Aerith (the Canadian post-hardcore band, not the US metal band), and Global Communication, to name a few. Sometimes, those artists come back and it’s like they were never gone; and that’s how ‘Hostile Design’ feels for Black Eyes.
Sitting squarely at the intersection of Peter Brötzmann and Peter Murphy, ‘Hostile Design’ finds the band continuing their unique blend of free jazz and post-punk. Right from the beginning seconds of ‘Break A Leg’, this is unmistakably Black Eyes; the two drummers create controlled chaos, the two vocalists seemingly fight for control of the microphone (and the listener’s attention), the saxophone shrieks as if possessed by demons, the guitar feeds back into oblivion, and the bass guitar provides the only semblance of melody to be found.
Some of the other tracks here are more restrained, with a two-thirds of the album’s length coming from half of its songs. But that’s not to say they aren’t just as intense and powerful as the shorter songs; they just allow their chaos to unfold a bit more slowly and/or in controlled bursts. Second track ‘Burn’ starts with a groovy, hip-hop-style backbeat and some quite gorgeous ambient synth chords before introducing a laconic chant in, from what I can tell, is Greek. Things kick off about two minutes into the track, when the second vocalist comes in with a rather violent shout, both sonically and lyrically: “Kill your shitty parents / let their blood flow free / across the hot concrete”. The song then trades off between scream-rapped verses, blown-out choruses that sound like they’re coming apart at the seams, and even more chanting before returning to the original drum-and-synth groove.
The two shortest tracks on the album, ‘Pestilence’ and ‘Yeah, Right’, are maybe the most familiar-sounding Black Eyes songs here, but they still sound new as the band explores their identity two decades on from when they started. Album closer and second single ‘TomTom’ is their longest song to date, and again begins with a chant in a foreign language (which I can’t discern). Over the first six minutes of the song, it slowly builds into a frenetic wall of noise, which then gives way to the a cappella chant from the beginning that fades away as it becomes drenched in reverb throughout the last minute of the album.
‘Hostile Design’ is a triumphant return for a band who, in my opinion, has not been appreciated enough for their place in the noise-punk canon. The album feels like a continuation for older fans, but also a great entry point for the uninitiated. Sure, the music is abrasive and chaotic, and it certainly isn’t for everyone; but for the listeners who can appreciate the beauty in the madness, they will be rewarded for their two decades of patience. It’s fitting that this album was released on 10/10, because it’s another flawless entry in a legendary discography.