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March 19, 2012

Guilt Trip “Feed the Fire” – Viva Music Album Review

Tracklist: “Headplate” * “Breathe” * “Inanimate” * “Eternal Return” * “Unite” * “Once a Week Twice a Day” * “Reset” * “Life Spit Love” * “Fragments” * “Crack Up” * “Baptism” * “The Bright Side of Lies

About Guilt Trip:

“We are Guilt Trip. We exist in the in between as existence is relative. We destroy to create, oppose to liberate and sodomize to not be victimized. We are the splinter in our brother’s and sister’s eye. We spit in the face of “truth”, “reality” and authority. Deconstruct, revaluate, resist, react and expand. Guilt Trip. Banging on the walls of reality. Eternal warfare is the price of that existence. Eternally returning. To be sane we have to go out of our minds. We can be our mind’s own midwife. The normal is perverse so we’ll slit throats to help with the breathing. Extreme conditions demand extreme responses. Guilt Trip. Sometimes personal but always political as the personal is political. Everything is ideology. A false universe. Rules + submission = culture. Disobey. Tear it all down and start again. Guilt Trip are one of a number, part of a whole, individuals in a collective. Subjects trapped in construed positions, smashing our heads against that cage. A cure for history. New hammers, new rhythms, new chants. Guilt Trip is beyond good and evil. Pretentious? Yes, but for a reason, so open the blood gates and pack your bags. We’re going on a Guilt Trip.” (source: label site)

Guilt Trip – “Feed the Fire” – Viva Music Album Review:

Out on Mar-13/-23 (Scandinavia) with Complete Control Productions, the new release from Guilt Trip entitled “Feed the Fire” was a thorough and satiating experience even on first listen! If you remember Chirurgie Esthetique (and you should), then there is some 90’s industrial residual that is going to appeal even to the untrained ear. What is so lovable about this album? Any answer given at this moment would diminish the album’s multifaceted sexiness; it checks off most rubrics you would expect an album to: it’s rough and tender, it’s arid and luxurious, it’s real and surreal. And all that with a strict agenda, like the one expressed by the band in their statement (above).

Headplate” is a great induction into the art of Guilt Trip – the beats are excellent, and the production of the track flawless. It would not be wrong to consider “Headplate” a masterpiece, but that’s just the first track! “Breathe” comes up next; and you are up against serious trouble – just take into account the phrasing “colonial colon cleansing” and you know that M. Nilssson and K. Lindberg know what they are talking about. Intent on deconstructing our ‘real’ pleasantries and leaving us spectators to a world that is, in fact, living its worst while extolling its best, “Breathe” is a very creative and enticing piece of music. And then there’s “Inanimate” to enhance your awareness – taking as a standpoint the cruelty of modernity under the guise of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the song talks no-nonsense about antonymous “humanity” and “being human”. And if this standpoint seems radical, you should wait for “Eternal Return” to reset your vision: not because there’s a brighter future, but because you can actually be washed over by the torrent of lyrics, scatological but do not let yourselves be fooled; as they say in the song, “can’t be denied, although we tried/there is no true meaning/all based on lies it glorifies/but there’s no redemption”. The same standstill, absent redemption clarifies the meaning of the very palatable “Unite”, as well as of the up next “Once a Week Twice a Day”. A Viva Music favorite, “Reset” does what it says, with a very dance compatible beat and a very pertinent score of lyrics, it truly changes the field of vision toward an unexpected, but at the same time so natural plateau of very dignified music. And the ensuing “Life Spit Love” is a wonderful find, frankly, it should be aired a lot this summer in clubs, because it has all it takes! “Fragments” is there to perpetuate the same feeling, all with great zest and with an undeniable vein of 1990’s nostalgia. “Crack Up” is sleek and insinuates itself into the album, requesting its rights at a very plausible pace; as is “Baptism”. To close the album compilation, “The Bright Side of Lies”, again a Viva Music favorite, captures a truly delectable experience, not cathartic, despite its “this is my life” litany, but taking hold of a very clear-minded and firm-gripping position.

Feed the Fire” is a damn good album and throughout, industrial sharpness vies with electronic effervescence. Not only is it very melodic and dance friendly, but also it carries a message that should be taken heed of; under the varied magmatic layers of words there lies an acuity of the world we live in, and that’s another merit of  Guilt Trip, working slowly but surely their way into your awareness of how things are. If you feel guilty on listening to the album, then their job is done. Enjoy!

Guilt Trip – on Facebook | Discography on Discogs

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