Catharsis in a closet.

This is just one of those times when the album art doesn‰’t match the music. In my opinion at least. Whereas the cover is the stuff of traditional melancholy, an array of blues molding a somber face, Total Strife Forever (someone‰’s bitter) is more or less reminiscent of fragmented, post-modernist isolation. 

Then again one could argue that‰’s a general feeling produced by Kautrock-electronic-ambient-what-have-you. Apathy. Good ole Billy Pilgrim apathy.

Interestingly enough, the album isn‰’t just total strife forever. It‰’s total strife forever parts I-IV, my personal favorite being part I, the second track on the album. Mind you it‰’s simply a series of one, steady beat in about four or five different tones. Nothing absurdly special. 

The album favorite will most likely be “Dripping Down,‰” for it‰’s one of the only songs with lyrics on the album, thus the most human and relatable. Sort of like a Bombay Bicycle Club song produced on another planet, say Venus, “Dripping Down‰” paints a romantic portrait of an unidentified being- “you‰Û- who needs to find the new love dripping down your soul. Lovely.

RIYL: Teleman, TRAAMS
Recommended: 1, 3, 6