If you wanted a group to write the soundtrack to the world after the apocalypse, your search might lead you to Correction House. Mike IX Williams of Eyehategod, Scott Kelly of Neurosis, Bruce Lamont of Yakuza, Sanford Park Of Minsk, and Seward Fairbury, come together to form a dark, post-apocalyptic, and experimental Voltron. Once formed, these five men create something that defies interpretation. This is an artistic statement, a project that relies as much on visual interpretation as it does audio. For the visuals, you’ll have to check out Corrections House live. For the audio, well, I’ll do my best to lead you through that minefield.
Does Corrections House have guitars? Well, um, kind of. Scott Kelly plays the guitar, but he isn’t interested in riffs or grooves, he’s interested in six-string chaos. Does Corrections House have vocals? It does, but not in any way you’d think. Trading between styles, Corrections House vocals are just part of everything else going on. There is a violent storm happening here, and no one element is more powerful than the other. Williams’ screams in blasts of guttural of desperation, while Kelly peppers in his more low-end, tired vocals. Lamont brings in something of a dulcet tone, an almost narrative link in the chain.
Thus far, the only thing we’ve heard from this project, came from their split 7”. Now it’s time for the full weight of Corrections House to be felt with their full length debut Last City Zero. Nobody in this project comes from a band involved with banging out hit records, and their collaborative effort falls right in line with that. Last City Zero won’t be an album for everyone. The opening track, “Serve Or Survive” is an eight-minute testimony to that. It grinds out slowly, with a percussive noise loop repeating, as Kelly warbles an intro that comes across like a warning. From there it explodes into Williams’ screaming poetry. Those words are filtered through a cocktail of harsh noise, percussion and guitar blasts that wraps Willams’ voice in a blanket of spiteful bitterness.
Last City Zero demands to be heard from start to finish. It is one solid, ugly, loud and punishing art project . Going into this expecting to find a single, or even a song, is a bad idea. Go into Last City Zero thinking of a film score, something that elicits varied reactions out of you depending on what’s going happening from movement to movement.
It might help to see it through cinematic eyes. Imagine the world as we know it is over. The planet is a seething wasteland of charred remains, ruined cities, and death. Corrections House is one man, not a hero, not somebody looking to avenge an injustice, just a survivor in this world. Those thoughts, fears and emotions, coupled with the horrors he would experience in the day to day, is the complete mindfuck that Corrections House are producing.
I applaud anything that touches me on a literary level. Listening to Last City Zero I was reminded of books that I love. The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Lord Of The Barnyard by Tristan Egolf, A Clockwork Orange from Anthony Burgess, History Of Luminous Motion by Scott Bradfield, and A Good Day To Die from Jim Harrison. Not all of these novels share a post apocalyptic vibe, but they do share the idea of the lost soul, the persecuted character screaming against that which he cannot change. For all its ugliness and abusive soundscapes, Last City Zero is a beautiful record. An album of such honesty that you have no choice but to be touched by it. If you’re not, if you think of it as a bunch of noise, then you don’t get it. I am not saying that as an insult, just a statement of fact.
Corrections House is a difficult band, and Last City Zero is a difficult record. Lush, foreboding movements like “Run Through The Night”, give way to darker tracks like “Hallows Of The Stream”, and violent explosions like “Bullets And Graves”. Each segment of Last City Zero is a necessary component for the entire album. As much as is crammed into this album, not one moment of it is wasted space.
Corrections House have created something wholly original, incredibly touching, and most likely alienating. Bravo gentlemen, bravo.
