Alan Vega, IT, A Review (2017)

Alan Vega, IT, A Review (2017)

By: Ghost Writer

Rock N Roll Animal

Does Alan Vega knew he was going to die, probably I guess, pretty much like CHUCK, by Chuck Berry, IT comes like a posthumous album (Vega died in July last year) by a legendary underground NYC star that perhaps was aware that his end was near, Vega might be dead by now, but he went away fighting, IT is a powerful recording, close to the noise artists he he genuinely influenced with his band Suicide, instead of the synth pop acts that tend to drop his name as a way to get some critical respect, opener DTM could be seen as a hardcore version of the rocking Suicide classic Ghost Rider, as Vega create a primitive aural attack with a basic strident percussion and blaring loop sound attack, but Vega is not shy about his legendary strengths and his voice of course takes a stellar role here, DTM, "death to me", I'm sure he knows and he wanted to go with a bang, Dukes God Bar is less brutal, but the gut crunching surroundings are nevertheless disconcerting, ruthless and minimal, but despite the enormous cacophony of cosmic proportions here, Vega knew how to keep things rolling with a good industrial strength blues like on Vision, a tune so distorted and abrasive that immediately recalls Pan Sonic, the Finnish abrasive electronic duo that featured the also recently deceased noise genius Mika Vainio, with whom Vega once performed with in a project.

You can bet IT is an ugly record, ugly in a noise music way, is obscene, you will probably be in shock with Vega's scream at the begging of...yes...Screamin' Jesus, but the overall aural attack is also the stuff of a genius, a wonderful wall of sound that slowly drill holes in the brain, all this while Vega's voice slowly swells and become almost hypnotic, if you thought that Suicide or Vega were fancy synth pop pioneers better think about IT twice, this is not only music to get your head fucked up, it can also make you dance like one of those George A. Romero (also recently deceased) living dead, but fun is just waiting around the corner on the almost industrially dynamic Motorcycle Explodes that sounds almost like one of those weirdo blues by the great Captain Beefheart but in a distant future, in a way is like Captain´s wonderful disjointed blues, once again confirming the primordial influence of Beefheart on modern Avant Garde music, and it also could be seen as the continuation of a musical tradition coming from Beefheart, through Mark E. Smith´s The Fall and embraced here by Vega, although surely Vega was a big influence on Smith first).

Prayer is not exactly the most prominent piece here, it’s another type of music, less confrontational, almost hypnotic, trance inducing, building a slow piece of exquisite static, almost immovable, also tangentially touching the mighty CAN, a true exercise of stamina and only for true lovers of Suicide or Vega´s brand of sound mayhem, even relaxing itself in the end and leaning towards a bit of fun, the fact that Prophecy follows the same formula is not exactly a good sign and it shows a little bit of exhaustion creatively speaking, or perhaps Vega becoming as obnoxious as Lou Reed on its most experimental phase, Vega challenging the listener sonic assaulting them as part of his impressive performance act as a street thug, and then finally going into really surreal territory with the nearly abstract Stars, a lovable sonic fuck you in order to prevent form letting down hardcore fans, an aural goodbye from a truly legendary character, the end of a musical legend, but one that is going away with a very high note, with a powerful and iconoclast creation, a musical testament that demands to be heard in order to be believed, the spirit of the Mighty Suicide present all over IT, and yes, this is IT.