“Boner is weaved in the alloys of a fusion of unsuspected sound particles where the music is of use as pretext to an experimental madness...”
1 Silent 1:12
2 Mauls of Reclining 3:30
3 Bright Meowing 4:54
4 By Us 2:44
5 Smoked Info Monster 8:41
6 Knock Outs 5:25
7 La Waltz of Kirk 4:53
8 Okay Without Reheating 3:18
9 Bell Hill Minutement 7:41
10 Weak Spelling 2:59
11 Radio Sun 4:57
12 Cervus 5:06
13 The Yeah Winces 5:03
(DDL 60:51) (V.F.)
(Ambient, distorded and abstract music)
Phew that my ears took quite a whole blow! An ode to powerful din stigmatized in percussions and riffs as curt as incisive, to make King Crimson pale in its moments of poetic lethargy, BONER is a violent sound exercise where anti-music is measured with snatches of repressed harmonics in powerful painful metal abrasions. Yet the rhythm is as rare as the melodious approaches. It's ambient Trash Metal flooded of heterogeneous tones fractionated in atmospheres of corrupted acid (Smoked Info Monster and Bell Hill Minutemen). Album incredibly difficult to tame, it experienced a birth at the height of its commercial reach. It was a year after Never Trust the Things They Do (2007) that the BONER adventure began. Short of financial resources, the trio adept of iconoclastic musical structures and tones had difficulty in raising the sums of money necessary to produce their next album. This is how it was entirely realized in a volunteer context, both for the musicians and the directors (Adrian Benavides and Marziano Fontana) and the sound engineer (Lee Fletcher). A crowdfunding campaign was launched, Bonestarter, aimed at raising funds to pay a symbolic sum for those who collaborated so that this Centrozoon project could see the light of day. It's a long process which took over 3 years.
The media approach surrounding this 11th opus of a band that goes from the eclectic ambient to a messy and biconical sci-fi is clear; BONER is an album that will challenge the tolerance of experimental music's lovers. And this is absolutely true! I'm not really a lover of experimental music, but I must admit that this album has blown up the tolerance of my speakers and the limits of my girlfriend's understanding for music that escapes her. Drops of metallic water falling into a void flavored with compressed glass tones awaken a slow and heavy bass line which winds a brief semi groovy rhythm, just before the short Silent embraces a sluggish finale. Here we are, well-sat to face this UFO-ic and abstract universe. Abstract or anti-music, it's because Mauls of Reclining is nourished by howling metal layers and muffled pulsations with iodized carbon while the strikes of an ethereal xylophone try to accompany the resonant bangs which hammer an absent rhythm that heavy riffs suddenly massacre with long blows of knives on guitar's six-strings. Surprisingly, mocking ticking adds to the weight of resonance on a track devoid of rhythms but full of tone and riffs as heavy as tetanized. And it's this abstruse world that scrolls through our ears throughout the discovery of the album. Apart from Bright Meowing and La Waltz of Kirk, which offer more constant rhythms, BONER is mainly composed of howling metal ambiences and barbaric extraterritorial poetry on structures that scratch the hearing just as much as the paintings that adorn our listening rooms. True wringer for headphones, this album is woven in alloys of a fusion of unsuspected sound particles where the music serves as a pretext for an experimental madness that transcends the boundaries of imagination.
Did I like it? Let say that it's not really my kind! But I like a sound world of disproportionate tones which explode on lively structures. BONER has only some of these structures, but tones of all stripes explode of a rare violence stigmatized in stationary pockets. A real puzzle for music fans in search of sound exploration, BONER is as well cold as metallic and leaves in the ear imprints with taste of insoluble metal. But those who like the kind risk to spend a damned good moment. Because it’s as much impenetrable as a bone in an ear!
Sylvain Lupari (May 4th, 2012) *****
Available at Centrozoon Bandcamp