Album Details

• Artist: Kites
• Album: Hallucination Guillotine / Final Worship
• Label: Load
• Year of Release: 2008
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2008-03-06

Media

Kites do not allow the listener to sit still. Mostly that is due to the fact that said listener's skin is crawling, but also because there is a lot to pay attention to in this primordial stew.

 "HallucinationGuillotine/FinalWorship" is essentially a suite in two parts of five songs each, which explore the inner and outer expression of horror. Artwork and photos attached show torture ancient and modern. Providence's own Chris Forgues has stripped down his sound to its most brutal and brooding electronic bones. The opener, "Hallucination Guillotine," features a chilling segue from what sounds like a dying lawnmower to the sounds of larger machines dying. From then on the hallucination horrors continue and become increasingly hermetic. "Glitter Raider in the Hall of Triumph" and "Pink Shadows" feature dark scraping drones barely concealing random haiku-like laments.

By the time one reaches the final tunes, especially the scarring "Poison Blur," you are exhausted and wondering if there is any way out of this maze of pain we have created and wallowed in. The "final worship" is the worship of death and decay, but a death imposed, not the natural fact we all face. Kites does not blink in the exploration of how we have come to be such good friends with such cruelty.

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