Style: Electronic body music, industrial
Primary Emotions/Themes: The deprived nature of human kind and the god that has forsaken us, darkness in peoples hearts
Thoughts: Humanity is a disgusting, rancid, piece of flesh that has long overstayed its welcome on this planet.
The longer that I'm exposed to the world in its current state the more this statement rings true. It's a view that I've slowly come around to as the true state of the planet has revealed itself to me over the years. Every chance that we have been given - every single one - has been squandered and we double down on things that simply do. not. work.
After listening to Too Dark Park, I can confidently say that I am not alone in my views here. Ogre and company have delivered an album that is keenly in tune with these sentiments. The music - if you can call it that - is harsh, unpleasant, and honestly a challenge to listen to.
The instruments are made with little to no regard for how they land on the human ear. They screech, repeat, and grate across my ears - much like nails on a chalkboard... at least at first. As the mind gets acclimated to the instrumentation and its... quirkiness - the music begins to unfold in ways that were not previously observed.
The clashing of the synths, atmospheres, samples, drums, and Nivek's angry whispered vocals slowly create layers of rhythms that somehow move from noisy soundscapes to groovy beats and conceptual layers. The metallic clanking slowly blends together with the deep beats and the crazy disharmonious soundscapes to go from completely unlistenable to something that I seek out.
It's like a switch flipped in me, one moment I hated this album - the next I loved it. This is one of the premiere examples of me "getting" a record and band - breaking through the intentionally obtuse sound to find enjoyment in the music where the previously was none.
In many ways Skinny Puppy's Too Dark Park is harsher than most metal that I have in my collection. The acclimation period for this album took me much longer than almost any metal album I've listened to since perhaps Gorgut's Obscura. It's become a definitive album for me for the early 90's, not just in EBM but also in music in general. It's way ahead of it's time in terms of the way the music was produced, sampled and stitched together - and it remains my favorite work from the band.
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