Decline of the West

Album review

Holy Sons want to get under your skin. The intimacy of this recording seeps existential dread like an oily terror-sweat. Often classified as lo-fi, this music may at first be deceptively minimal -- plucked guitar, hushed organ, drum machine -- but upon repeated listens one notices the intricacy and elaborateness of the arrangements, and every track is different enough to warrant praise for the album's diversity. The songs have only the instrumentation needed to convey their message; they're accompanied by banjo, found recordings, double-tracked vocals, eerie drones and subtle distortion. The common thread is a foreboding like nothing short of Armageddon that is more present in tone than in actual words or sounds. Imagine A Silver Mt. Zion performing at a coffeehouse open-mic night where somewhere in the background a radio is tuned to ominous newscasts of global unrest; or maybe it's just that the world always seems on the verge of collapse when the politics of the heart are clashing. Then realize that in reality there's only one Holy Son -- Emil Amos, who also drums for Portland's Grails -- responsible for every instrument and every word save for a couple of choice covers ("Level Anything" from Eric Gaffney of Sebadoh, and "Nothing Left" from the collaboration between Daniel Johnston and Jad Fair). The hushed atmosphere and subdued vocals belie the immediacy and necessity of Holy Son's words: "Don't ya know they need ya/'Cause someone has to lose" or "His mind is not a microscope/Illusion is good, the same as hope" or "Evil falling down from the sky/Clouds parting fingers pointing high." The Holy Sons website describes the album thusly: "Decline of the West is named after and conceptually began with Oswald Spengler's pessimistic assessment that Western culture is revealing the classic signs of a society's decay and end." Which would justify the deeply paranoiac impression it leaves on the listener. That, and the title of the final track: "Things You Do While Waiting for the Apocalypse."
© Brian Way /TiVo