The Battery Farm: Darkish Internet

Venturing into darkers realms and rising in stature with every launch, The Battery Farm as soon as once more ship one other assortment of uneasy listening which doesn’t lose that punk chunk, but borders on a brand new deep apocalyptic gothic sound says Wayne AF Carey.

The Battery Farm are not any strangers to ideas. Simply try their earlier output with the likes of Soiled Den’s March Of Struggling EP and the wonderful uncooked dirtiness of their nice debut FLIES and also you’ll know the place I’m heading. Extra of an interview than a assessment, frontman Ben Corry explains every music intimately matched with my sonic description of the entire shebang…

Beneath the Bomb

LTW: A mellow darkish gothic begin with Ben sounding menacing and maudlin with a Last Lower-esque bassline that’s unsettling and warped.

Ben Corry: “That is the very first music I wrote for the album, again after we have been nonetheless recording FLIES. It was written within the early months of the Russian terror of Ukraine, when the spectre of the bomb started to rear its demise head once more in a approach not seen because the first Chilly Warfare. The music is about each what The Bomb takes from us now, and what it could take from us if it strikes. To reside below the bomb is to reside within the shadow of futility and concern, the information at all times underlying that at some point the previous, current and future could possibly be worn out in an unfathomable apocalypse, all of us mud on the altar of struggle. It’s a stark topic, and I wished a stark association to start out the album boldly. Beneath the Bomb is just about unchanged from once I wrote it in my home, alone with all my fears.”

The Subsequent Many years

A rip roaring bass heavy quantity with Ben at his gnarly punkest greatest backed with thundering drums from Sam and doom riffs from Dom whipping up a storm.

“That is the heaviest music on the album, and positively probably the most sometimes ‘Battery Farm’ music on Darkish Internet. I can’t recall ever beforehand delivering a vocal with this stage of visceral depth – it’s a excessive bar – and I’m actually happy with it. It’s a kind of uncommon tracks that really sounds extra intense on the file than reside. Lyrically, it observes the epoch of violence and geopolitical chaos we’re presently dwelling by means of, trying on the worst case eventualities for what doubtlessly awaits us within the coming a long time – the third world struggle, the rendering uninhabitable of our planet – and lashing out with wild desperation. It doesn’t provide options as a result of it could’t. It’s a howl of despair, as a result of that’s how I felt once I wrote it. Is that solipsistic? Sure, most likely. Generally that’s the one approach to cope. Now we’re change into demise, certainly.”

Hail Mary

A belting journey into the darkish world of TBF’s noise. Ben is on prime type as standard, backed by the elphantine guitar sounds from Dom’s myriad results that he owns. It’s catchy as fuck and sounds huge and indignant like they do greatest. The entire dynamic shakes and roars with soiled attract.

“The songs on Darkish Internet have benefitted massively from a extra collaborative strategy to writing between the 4 of us. Hail Mary was the primary of a sequence on this album we put collectively fully within the apply room. This extra holistic strategy, we’ve discovered, takes us in instructions that we wouldn’t have supposed to go in have been we being aware about it. In the end it opens us as much as everybody’s influences, with Hail Mary being fully constructed round Paul’s mathy, angular bass riff. Principally, this music completely modified our strategy to writing and greater than something actually crystallised the icier, extra reflective route wherein we wished to take Darkish Internet. Lyrically – in a nutshell – it’s about doomscrolling. It’s a remaining, futile try to interrupt free from the oppressive, addictive terror of the 24 hour information cycle and the cacophonous fury and inanity of social media, each of that are slowly killing us and neither of which we appear to have the ability to flip away from.”

O God

A noodling bassline, machine gun guitar suggestions, Ben ranting like a preacher and gradual pumelling drums. What extra might you ask for with a formulation like this from Manchester’s best gutter punks? Oh God, which approach is hell?

“The album’s first single. Pushed ferociously by Paul and Sam’s chic rhythm work and inventive ingenuity. If me and Dom had had our approach it might have been a totally completely different music. We got here in with this sludgy, stompy factor that sounded nice simply the two of us, however actually was absolute swill within the room. After hours of attempting to get it to work, Sam took the initiative and launched into the beat that you simply hear on the file, Paul pulled that bassline out of nowhere, and me and Dom reconfigured our respective elements to swimsuit the brand new rhythm. What resulted, out of nowhere, was basically the completed article, resplendent with the proper pressure for a music about being on the mercy of chaos in an unsentient universe. Magic.”

Darkish Internet

One other moody bastard which brings out the crooner loving parts in Ben’s vocals. The mellow clam earlier than the long run storm

“Darkish Internet is supposed to function the encapsulation of the album’s themes. The Darkish Internet exists on this music – and certainly within the album – because the embodiment of the depravity, evil and ferality alongside which all of us, it appears, should reside our lives. Slaughter, exploitation and dehumanisation shadow our collective consciousness, which chips away at our shared humanity and debases all of us. How do you push ahead, simply attempting to reside your life, realizing that for thus many who isn’t an choice? How do you push ahead realizing that you simply exist parallel to unspeakable struggling? Is attempting to push ahead finally probably the most wicked factor you are able to do?”

Stevie’s Ices

Dom will get carried away along with his bizarre results backed by psychological drumming from Sam and a doom bass riff from Paul complimenting the entire fucked up story telling from Ben. It’s a backbone tingling pay attention which will get higher each pay attention. Monstrous as fuck with ear melting guitar riffs.

“This music was initially 6 minutes lengthy, with lyrics about an ice cream man who occurs to be the unwilling keeper of a titanic, lovecraftian beast who must be fed Human youngsters the entire yr spherical to stay docile. This was to be Stevie’s motivation for working within the winter – to make sure the beast could possibly be fed its naked minimal, to spare the Human race its apocalyptic rage. Sure, this might consequence within the deaths of some youngsters, but it surely was needed to guard us all from the monster’s unholy wrath. Stevie’s Ices initially stood as a rumination on meta-ethical ethical relativism, begging the query of whether or not there objectively are things like good and evil in a universe of chaos, the place no matter good we attempt to do is laced with somebody’s abject struggling. Are all of us simply attempting to protect ourselves? Anyway, that music ended up being actually boring so I modified the lyrics, then we reworked the music within the room with all 4 of us, and now it’s a grubby little quantity a few peeping, wanking ice cream man. So there you go.”

Icicles

The group effort and the funkiest bastard on the album. Take a look at the bass and the bizarre as fuck guitar sound from Dom utilizing his results to their potential. Ben goes spoken phrase to some extent and howls the refrain in solely the best way he can. An earworm stuffed with worms.

“That is my favorite music on the album. A very natural collaboration between the 4 of us. We got here into the room with nothing however a set of lyrics and a deadline to satisfy for recording and constructed this monster out of sheer will. We have been up towards it all through the method of constructing Darkish Internet, and the reminiscence of placing this music collectively exemplifies fully why I’m so happy with it. We knew we would have liked a music and relatively than simply throwing one thing collectively everybody had good concepts within the second that meshed collectively completely. That comes from years of exhausting graft and the event of a mutual understanding and inventive chemistry that you simply solely get by working exhausting collectively for a very long time. It feels just like the embodiment of what we’ve put into this album, what we’ve been by means of to get it made and what we’ve achieved in doing so. I completely treasure it.”

John Bull’s Exhausting Occasions

One other exhausting hitter stuffed with Dom’s trademark squalling guitars and Bens fury lurching out of the audio system with spitting venom and crunching drums that cave your head in all revolving across the bass.

“The ultimate single from the album and one other music that roughly simply occurred on the spot, pushed by Dom’s ferocious, fuzzed-up guitar riff. John Bull is a cartoon character who was used primarily within the 18th and nineteenth century as an idealised, conservative personification of the UK. John Bull’s Exhausting Occasions takes a have a look at what he’s now and finds him indignant, drained, paranoid, despondent and poor. His present situation is the results of a long time of neoliberalist managed decline and 14 years of vicious Tory assault. Johnny Bull’s not trying good.

As I write this, we’ve simply had a mealy-mouthed funds from a cowardly Blue Labour authorities intent on sustaining the murderous Neoliberal established order of the final 45 years that has failed everybody however probably the most rich. As I write this, Donald Trump has been reelected president of the US, in an instance of what occurs if you govern with cowardice, which Labour will little doubt study both nothing or all of the flawed classes from. While you govern with cowardice, you let the far proper in. When you don’t stand as much as fascism you foment its rise. Johnny Bull’s so fucking indignant. Johnny Bull’s so very drained.”

It’s a Disgrace, Thanks a Lot

One other bass pushed second with private lyrics as described beneath. It’s a coronary heart wrenching unhappy quantity that anybody who’s skilled psychological well being can relate to. A touching topic for a lot of labored into an important tune.

“In January 2023 I had a psychological breakdown and ended up in hospital. I’d have died if I hadn’t gone. Simply after that, nonetheless within the midst of a terror you may’t even think about except you’re in it, I wrote this music on my piano. I wrote this as a method of laying all of it on the market with brutal starkness – the violence of all of it, the convulsion, the monstrous concern, the shortage of management, the sensation of absolute putrid hopelessness and helplessness. On the time, I wrote this music to try to heal myself and purge all of the poison from my soul. It didn’t work as a result of it’s not that easy, but it surely did assist. And it continues to, though it stays a troublesome pay attention. I hope it helps you too, when you want it.”

After the Bomb

One other nod to late Waters period Pink Floyd with extra nice guitar work from Dom and Paul, together with tight as fuck crystal clear drums from Sam. A Battery Farm masterpiece that explodes two minutes in like a ten tonne ultrabomb. Indignant, bizarre and darkish in a single membership sandwich and an effective way to exit.

“I at all times wished to bookend the album with Beneath/After the Bomb, but it surely took ages to get it to work. This music went by means of so many iterations that simply didn’t work – from Floydesque Prog torch music to corny Glam stomper – that for some time we deserted it. I’m glad we didn’t, as a result of it’s an ideal finish to the album. One other instance of simply what a drive we’ve change into, creatively, as a unit. There are 4 or 5 songs on this album whose remaining type simply occurred out of nowhere and that is one in all them. We completed this a few week earlier than we have been as a result of file. I don’t know the way we did it.

Lyrically, that is clearly a companion piece to Beneath the Bomb. Nonetheless, the place UTB displays on the private value of nuclear weapons, ATB rails towards their very existence. This music is concerning the hubris and insanity of the very existence of those weapons. Nuclear Warfare will not be Sci-Fi. Nuclear annihilation is an actual chance. It isn’t, nevertheless, an inevitability. Full nuclear disarmament is important to our survival. Every single day that these weapons exist we’re, all of us, at risk. The Doomsday Clock is nearer to midnight than it has ever been. We will’t hold this up endlessly. I’ll go away you with a quote from Bertrand Russell that underpins the themes of this entire album, and which adorns the again cowl of Darkish Internet – ‘You could moderately anticipate a person to stroll a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it might be unreasonable to take action with out accident for 200 years.’”

A not so troublesome second album from the North Manchester lads who by no means quit and create a bizarre loud fantastic noise of their very own design. Take a look at their Louder Than Warfare Radio takeover with Iain Key to listen to extra…

Album launch twenty ninth November at The Deaf Institute Lodge. Tickets right here.

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Phrases by Wayne Carey, Critiques Editor for Louder Than Warfare. His creator profile is right here