SI012 — Bone by Never Worse
Never Worse returns to Steep Incline with another short, sharp smattering of incendiary noise.
The four tracks comprising Bone deliver a concise vision of crystalline, haunting blackness – like a cursed shard of onyx.
Never Worse has, by now, developed a recognisable palette of sounds, techniques and rhythmic tropes that seem to provide endless opportunities for making your teeth itch in slightly different ways. What he always manages to deliver is an uneasiness that’s nevertheless fun – there’s a wry playfulness that undercuts all the demonic clatter that makes the whole thing almost, dare we say it, camp.
In this EP especially, Never Worse doubles down on his 90s industrial heritage– sounding like a forgotten piece of NIN marching music, at times reminiscent of a Command & Conquer: Red Alert soundtrack that got rejected for being too intense. It’s like Frank Klepacki’s Hell March with the lo-fi Soviet military drills replaced by the groaning spirits that remained after a nuclear holocaust.
There’s a relentless, machinated energy that gives it this marching-skeleton-band-from-hell vibe, but it’s always offset by eerie assonant drones, swirling quasi-concrete samples (is that human screaming? Or warped static?), and occasionally harmonious passages that offer a deceptively redemptive glimpse of the world outside.
The exception to this rule is Bone’s highlight, The Walk, which offers a brief 02:15 respite from the percussive assault in the form of a low, bassy growl that sounds like all three of Cerberus’ heads threateningly purring. It’s punctuated by a sparse, creeping rhythm – bringing up a horrible image of a creature menacingly tottering over a dark, unforgiving expanse. Imagine the murderous scenes from Under The Skin in a parallel universe where Scarlet Johansson is Voldo from Soul Calibur.
It’s cursed, cinematic camp. The great soundtrack to a really bad game. Club music for leather-clad mutants. There’s a reason we released it on Hallowe’en.
Credits
All music by Never Worse
Mastering by Paulie Jan @ Agit Prop Studio
