Bleep

On the previous Blanck Mass full-length World Eater - an album that ended up in our top 10 for 2017 - Benjamin John Power certainly brought the noise. However, World Eater was nothing compared to the follow-up. We’re not sure how he’s done it, but that record somehow sounds tame in comparison to Animated Violence Mild.

Almost every second here is crammed with stuff, so much so that the sound waves for tracks like ‘Death Drop’ and ‘Wings Of Hate’ are pretty much rectangular. The production manages to sound shredded and messed-up, yet still allows melodies and tones to come through with clarity - no mean feat, and something that places Animated Violence alongside albums like Death Grips’ The Money Store.

While euphoric power electronics remain at the core of the Blanck Mass sound, club and rave influences are also a mite more prominent here than they have been on Power’s previous releases. ‘House Vs. House’ comes across like some sort of Super Smash Bros. mod in which you can make all of the Fade To Mind producers fight everyone who’s ever dropped a record on Posh Isolation. Trance synths punch through the infernal intensity of ‘Love Is A Parasite’, ‘Wings Of Hate’ and ‘No Dice’ - the latter of which even has a bit of a snap influence to it, something that makes it strangely reminiscent of Pictureplane. And as for ‘Death Drop’? Well, ‘Death Drop’ is jumpstyle in hell.

Animated Violence Mild, the latest LP from Blanck Mass, is a white-knuckle ride through extreme volume. The fact that this stuff was made by someone called Benjamin John Power is one of the all-time great examples of nominative determinism in music.