SHINING - Blackjazz

Rather anticipated, this "Blackjazz", the fifth album by Shining, is probably the definitive summa of their neo-progressive leanings, balanced precariously between fusion and metallic schlock.

Already fairly disappointing, the previous Grindstone had put us on our guard: the Norwegian outfit was sailing frighteningly toward an uncontrollable exaltation of its own sound, risking, at every turn, losing control altogether. In the end, our fears won out. Some have spoken of an encounter between Fear Factory and John Zorn, but listening to the opening "The Madness and the Damage Done" you have to adjust the aim a little. In the derailing, cyber-armored prog-death that assaults us with blunt force, in fact, we recognize those "brutalist" vertigoes that bring together, in a single embrace, Zs and Orthrelm. The effect isn't exactly among the best.

Something inhuman and, at the same time, hilarious runs through this music, even if the pretentious term would fit like a glove... Zappa would be thrilled by this stuff, perhaps condemning certain excesses, but still, how to put it, seriously entertained ("Fisheye").

The cover of 21st Century Schizoid Man by King Crimson (with a cameo by Grutle Kjellson of Enslaved) plays out a sci-fi mix of black-metal echoes and steel-plated structures, trying to make us understand the origins of such feral cruelty.

Elsewhere, in the fractured, dark-oriented groove of "Exit Sun, Pt. 1" and the post-industrial scansions of "Exit Sun, Pt. 2", we recognize cybernetic obsessions, clumsy and even belated attempts to project themselves into some distant future (the same one that evidently gathers the venomous gusts of "Omen"). Then, when Jørgen Munkeby's sax darts through the air in a rage, while a heap of guitar riffs eggs on its spasms, the music reaches peaks of absolute euphoria... Still, you have to wait for "Blackjazz Deathtrance" (a botched offspring of Nine Inch Nails) to talk about true "bombastic" apotheosis.

I don't know where Shining are trying to get to (they probably have their reasons, and a destination to reach). For now, though, "Blackjazz" marks a further step backward, failing to properly balance boundless ambition and bad taste.

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25/01/2010