The North Sea – Grandeur & Weakness (Rubber City Noise, 2013)

The North Sea – Vagrants (Rubber City Noise)

 
There’ve been plenty of Brad Rose eulogies what with FoxyD shuttin down and this being his last record as The North Sea, but Grandeur & Weakness is just too fucking awesome to let slip by. And since this is ostensibly a synth record, and since I’m usually bored by synth records, that should be enough to pique your interest. This isn’t a nostalgiac kickback or a plunky noodlefest, this is some dark n stormy shit with African percussion that’s stemming from Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched Of The Earth which “explored the psychological effect of colonization.” Rose has gathered a potent how to buy generic cialis blend of instruments to work on that colonization theme, he throws down some evil fucking drones that work towards a bittersweet bliss but end up just drenching your soul in disgust, blippy synth loops taking turns with blown out drums for conjuring frantic nightmares, nothing at ease, everything heaving & terrorizing, abrasive grit scouring the depths of your guilted mind, droning machinery impossibly pouding along well after it’s rusted solid, a record that trumps the rest in Rose’s catalog, The North Sea’s swan song that’ll go down in the books as a triumphant fucking masterpiece of noise/drone refuse. R.I.P.