Blind Idiot God

With Blind Idiot God, hardcore's cathartic violence was channeled into fiercely jagged and dissonant instrumental compositions, capable of bridging seemingly distant genres such as space-rock, reggae, heavy metal and funk. The result of this era-defining synthesis (probably one of the very first sprouts of post-rock) is a scorching math-rock "wall of sound" (of which they are the putative fathers), roamed freely by three instrumentalists: Andy Hawkins (a "Hendrix-like" guitarist, noise-maker and even given to off-beat strumming), Gabriel Katz (with his dark, craggy basslines) and Ted Epstein (whose drumming is schizophrenic and stormy).

Their full-length debut came in 1987 with a self-titled album released on Sst (one of the greatest independent labels in rock history). That album (destined to remain their masterpiece) was a seismic shock to the American alternative scene. Yet fame would never smile on the three young men from Missouri. Their vision was too far ahead of its time — a crossover as brilliant as it was paradoxical and reckless.

The terrible cacophonous charge of the opening "Stravinsky/Blasting Off" (introduced by a skeletal bass figure) is put through further adrenaline-fueled treatment thanks to the guitar's impetuous ascents. The backdrop is loaded with explosive force, saturated with reverb and feedback, as in the following "Shifting Sand", where the turmoil soars a thousand feet off the ground through a sudden lysergic guitar spiral and a terrifying interplay of counterpoints. Collapse is avoided as the fervor disperses into a more contained, almost ascetic turmoil ("Tired Blood"). But the guitar blasts and the paroxysmal drumming of "Wide Open Spaces" make clear it's not yet time to throw in the towel. The impression is of staring at an immensely tall wall with no windows, where the sun can do nothing but drip down like dense magma. The tension these tracks are allowed to build up is often truly unbearable. Then again, isn't a blind, idiot God just as unbearable? The impression, then, is that the message is deeply pessimistic, though not without rebellious, barricade-storming undertones. "Subterranean Flight" thrives on the apocalyptic conflict between the far-off echoes of the bass, guitar digressions launched at breakneck speed into a tangle of mangling rhythms, and the skeletal lulls in which that conflict seems, time and again, to subside and dissolve. The heavy metal of "More Time" is deceptively "mainstream", though not so much as to yield a tidy, easily digestible sound. After all, it's still their own personal take on heavy metal... The icy, hazy funk of "Dark And Bright" confirms their extraordinary ability to spin variation upon variation over a pseudo-theme. Then comes what you don't expect: the closing triptych, a sublime, dreamlike glide along unmistakably "dub" trajectories.

The tension is gone. There's something magical now. The off-beat rhythm drags the instruments into an almost minimalist vortex, made of knowing echoes, psychedelic traces and frayed edges stretched out into infinity ("Wise Man Dub"). The stretching is even more evident and "physical" in "Stealth Dub", with the six-string taking genuine flights of fancy. The dull thuds of the drums seem to repeatedly shatter these enveloping, sensual textures. The dissonant monolith of the earlier tracks has been gutted. What remains are melancholic, autumnal landscapes. The sound is, ultimately, icy, far more skeletal. It pierces the heart and mind. Rage has turned into resignation, drawing its last strength from a shattered soul. "Raining Dub", meanwhile, is even more experimental. The reggae fragments of the guitar undergo an exceptional "visionary" treatment. It's a delirium of reverb and swarming harmonics, now light years away from their infernal bacchanals.

Despite being a band made up of exceptional musicians, Blind Idiot God always stayed true to their roots, relegating technical showmanship to a dark corner and focusing on a musical vision capable of absorbing virtuosity into a higher synthesis, built above all on raw, genuine emotion. For this reason too, their name will remain carved forever into rock's annals. No matter how.

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27/10/2006