'Gresham as an External Reflection of Our Culminating Failures to (Sub)urban Sustainability; or, The Chocolate Returns but as a Subtle Smudge on a Reed College Reader of Western Cultural and Economic Hegemony in the 21st Century' is Cacaorcass's sophomore album, containing 15 tracks that combine elements of black metal, doom, grindcore, noise, post metal, powerviolence, and punk.
00:00 Fair Trade but Not Local: The Lesser of Two Evils
01:04 Reed Read Red Books at Reed
01:36 down&out
02:40 I Listened to 'Chocogrind' Once, and Now I'm More Critical Than You
04:06 They Won't Publish My Papers Because I'm Too Far Left for Their Regime
05:13 xoxoIMTOOCOLDWITHTHATCHOCOLATEDRIPxoxo
06:12 Mass Extinction before Our Consumption
06:31 Eaten to Death
07:35 (Sub)urban Decay
07:55 Choking on Guilt Solves Nothing
08:39 Filth Molded from the Womb
10:53 The Mirror Reveals True Disgust
11:10 May the Draught End Us All
12:10 xoxoDARKCHOCOLATEPOWERGRINDxoxo
13:12 (Y)our Actions Are Futile
The lyrics from this album continue along the lines from Cacaorcass’s first release, ‘Chocogrind,’ but as the music is a bit more diverse so are the themes. Gresham, as referenced in the title, is a suburban area of Portland, Oregon, where the initial idea for this album was conceived, but it wasn’t until I returned to Denver, Colorado, to nourish this work.
The opening track serves to ask the listener which would be the least damaging action we could take between the two contentious descriptions of items or products: fair trade and local. The brevity of the song is a painful reminder of the inadequate time we have to think before acting.
The themes of guilt and self-loathing return, but a new lyrical theme is that of academic elitism. The purpose of this is to bring attention to the superiority complex to which many of us frequently adhere especially when trying to defend our thoughts, words, and actions. We may believe ourselves to be dignified and holy without realizing more than just the explicit impacts we deliver. We also convey implicit and even null messages with our choices or lack of them.
The overall message of the album, to some, may appear to be that hope is a fraud and we should just embrace humanity’s suicide; however, the fact this message is being spread reflects our desire to expose the falsehoods that vandalize the intentions of beauty and justice we carry and to heal the wounds we have caused and antagonized for too long.
Signal chain:
Bronze Warlock by B.C. Rich
Fractal Audio Axe Fx II Mark II
MXL 990 Condenser Microphone
Focusrite Clarett 2Pre USB
iMac (2007)
Ableton Live 9
I used EZDrummer 2 from Toontrack to program the drums.
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