Dalek - Gutter Tactics (Ipecac / Southern)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
As opening statements go, you've got to admit it's a bold one. The opening track on Dalek's Gutter Tactics is named 'Blessed Are They Who Bash Your Children's Heads Against A Rock', and it's a segment from Reverend Jeremiah Wright and his now infamous 'America's chickens are coming home to roost' sermon. It pissed off such a huge amount of conservative America that at one point, given his links to Barack Obama, Rev. Wright's views could perhaps have lost the great black hope his presidency. But inflammatory though it might have been, you can't really fault it's factual content - "We've bombed Hiroshima, we've bombed Nagasaki, we've nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye..." are the last words uttered before Dalek take centre stage, and if you doubt their validity, I implore you, simply look it up.
This might be a hopeful time to be an African American - heck, any kind of American? - but it's nice to know that Dalek aren't getting swept away on a wave of anything other than the thick, ominous one constructed of noise and atmospherics that they themselves have made. This isn't the sound of cynicism. It's just a reminder that we've f**ked up so royally on so many counts that we've a long way to go yet.
Gutter Tactics still sounds Dalekian, but it's arguably more accessible than it's predecessor Abandoned Language - there are no ten minute long drones on this one. There's an eight minute long drone, but it's a very soothing one. As ever, the invigoratingly both brave and bleak production techniques play a starring role, but it seems as if there's a just a teeny bit more in the way of concession to tunes than there was before, if you're willing to put in the effort to find them. There's something churchlike about this now. It's like Saul Williams fronting the Cocteau Twins.
There are swathes of sound, notes, textures other than noise all over it - but you'd be hard pressed to find a recurring melody. It's more a case of blanket sound coverage. That said, there is one moment that positively twinkles, called 'We Lost Sight', which also contains a ten second a capella section towards its finale that is the only moment of sonic respite. If you want to get someone of a quieter disposition in to Dalek, this is the track to play them. Whatever you do don't start with what follows it - the title track is the band at their most guttural, Sunn O))) esque guitars underlying Entroducing style beats.
Of course, it's incredibly lyrically dense, and you can spend a lifetime dissecting every metaphor if you wish. You'll probably never have Gutter Tactics figured out, never be able to claim you 'get it' - there's just too much to 'get'. But that's part of the fun, right? The album seems to get increasingly better as it goes on because one needs to become accustomed to the one and only thing that Dalek do - make this specific racket. It draws you in rather than bores you because, despite being only one trick, it's such a complex and all enveloping trick that its singularity doesn't really become an issue at any point. Both sonically and lyrically, it's music that you submit to.
Yes, it's all a bit much. But anything less than a bit much, and Dalek needn't have bothered. We need Dalek to remind us of sounds like these, at this punishing length, and this intimidating volume. Listening to Dalek is still like being smacked about the face for an hour, but that's a great thing. Blessed are they who bash your children's heads against a rock, indeed.
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