Prurient - "Time's Arrow" (2011) [Hydra Head Records]

It’s good to see an artist that’s known for a more traditional approach to noise branching out into something that undoubtedly flies in the face of all noise conventions.  But, when does a trope become a schtick?  With the release of Bermuda Drain, I was really excited to hear a piece of music that was simultaneously intimidatingly melodic and fearsome.  This ethos is carried over in to Time’s Arrow well, but in a way that makes me fearful of what the future holds for Fernow and his compositions.  This EP feels like studio B-sides for Bermuda Drain, in that the first few tracks could have come from that album and I’d know no different.  I guess it’s just my appreciation for the approach that’s evinced on both albums that makes me apprehensive.

Time’s Arrow is a solid listen for an EP. While you won’t sit down to read and drink tea or have a nice conversation over Maskless Face or Slavery in the Bahamas, other tracks on the EP provide a more structured counterpoint that makes the hammering industrialized noise stand out as an excellent genre example.  While I can see a method to Prurient’s madness, I can only hope that it doesn’t devolve into a copy and paste effort that lays down hefty synth lines over metallic drumming and spoken word abstractions.

-Brandon