Misanthropic
Aggression delves into the uncompromising themes of human shortcomings and
aggression on their debut album, Insect Politics, reflecting raw sound
and thematic evolution.
1. Insect
Politics is your first full-length album. Can you describe the
creative vision behind the album and how it evolved from the initial conception
in early 2020?
Our music
is not of an experimental genre but we do regard its composition and recording
as an experiment in the sense that we try not to predict its outcome or be
overly prescriptive about what it should sound like before writing
begins. Coming into late 2020, we had just finished up the COVID-19
Reset EP which itself was really a couple of new tracks, a
re-recording, and a cover song we put out as soon as possible after our old
drummer left. From that point we knew the next material we laid down
would one: be all new; and two: be of full length. We also knew it had to
sound like us, and it had to fit the band invariants of being uncompromisingly
aggressive in sound and theme, but we shunned all other constraints.
Three of the songs (“Social Ruin,” “The Gates of Hell,” and “Intention Under
Performance”) were written by March 2021 and fully recorded and mixed.
Between mid-2021 and March 2022 we finished writing instrumentals for the rest
of the material and finished recording that by the middle of 2022. Lyrics
and vocals ended up taking longer, and that was wrapped up by late 2023.
2. You
mention that the album marks both an ending and a beginning for the band. Can
you elaborate on what this "conclusion" represents and how it sets
the stage for your next era?
The band
was started with a vision in 2017 and this album is the culmination of that
vision. We’re proud of all of our releases to date but this album is the
one which by a fairly large margin best represents the musical and thematic
content we set out to make seven years ago. Along the way of writing this
we experimented with various compositional techniques on tracks with “Social
Ruin” and “Eusocial Demesne” and realized that that’s the direction we’d like
to start steering towards for future songs.
3. The
pandemic clearly impacted the band, with tours evaporating and local gigs
drying up. How did that isolation influence the songwriting process, and how do
you think it shaped the final sound of Insect Politics?
The onset
and propagation of the pandemic sharpened our misanthropy to a degree.
Since the beginning the band has been rooted thematically in expressing all the
shortcoming of humanity. If nothing else, going through those few years
forced us to observe brand new forms of idiocy. I won’t call it an
“inspiration” because that’s not what it is, but it certainly had a depressing
effect on our social outlooks which in turn was manifested on the recording.
4. The
album blends elements of Black, Death, and crust punk. How do you balance these
influences to create a cohesive sound while still maintaining a raw edge?
To be
honest, it’s not trivial. There’s no difficult in the rawness, which
comes naturally; we couldn’t sound polished or smooth if we tried. But
the synthesis of disparate influences is something which while coming naturally
from the perspective of our own sensibilities is still a challenge to write and
record. Mainly because you kind of lose your frame of reference. If
you write an album which sounds exactly like Bolt Thrower, it becomes trivial
to judge those songs as “holding up” to the originals.
5.
Tracks like "Boomer Death" and "Winner of the Franchise
Wars" seem to have a satirical or critical edge. Can you tell us about the
themes you're addressing in these songs and how they fit into the overall
message of the album?
“Boomer Death” I would say completely lacks irony in its critique. The lyrics tell the whole story of questioning why well-to-do elderly folk would even want to try to stay in power or maintain relevance as opposed to sitting back and enjoying a lack of responsibility. “Winner of the Franchise Wars” conversely is a song which was inspired by the film Demolition Man in which Taco Bell has subsumed all of restauranthood by the year 2032. This was such a striking facet of the dystopian concept that we felt it deserved a kind of treatment in our song.
6. The
album features interludes like “Anger/Despair” and “La Canzone di Mary
Woodhouse.” How do these interludes contribute to the atmosphere and flow of
the record?
Both Jake
and I have banks of various little snippets and clips of media which tickle us
in various ways. When it came time to assemble the tracks into an album
I think both of us had some native intuition of what we wanted to go
where. “Anger/Despair” cuts from the scene in Sling Blade when
Dwight Yoakam’s character berates his “band”mates in a perfect fit of
rage. The interlude before “Gates of Hell” alludes to one of the main
themes in City of the Living Dead on which the former was
based. Lastly, the sample at the beginning of The Serpent and the
Sickle was pulled from an old 78 RPM by the Skillet Lickers called
“Slow Buck” and was selected for the only reason that it kept popping in my
head whenever the track “Winner of the Franchise Wars” finished.
7. Insect
Politics is being released on translucent red vinyl, which is a
striking visual element. How important is the visual aspect of the album, and
what role did the insect art by Jeremy Snevil play in setting the tone?
We knew
coming off of our 2020 EP that we wanted to continue the “red” theme of this
release aesthetically as a continuation of that previous. So, we had both
the album cover and vinyl done in that color. We did the layout for the
album ourselves and spent a great deal of time on making sure that the visual
representation was a fitting image for what the music was conveying. To
us, red is aggression.
8. With
Jake handling both lead vocals and drums and Chris covering guitar, bass, and
vocals, how do you manage the creative and technical aspects of recording as a
duo?
We both do
everything when it comes to writing. Jake writes a lot of guitar riffs.
Chris even wrote some drum parts on the record. We both write lyrics and
vocal arrangements. The balance of creative input is not something we think
about or plan; it just happens naturally. We didn’t rush the creative
process either, and the contribution of musical ideas from each of us proceeded
as through snatched from the air in the period of late 2020 until around late
2021. On recording, it is wholly a team effort, though Chris does take
lead in the more technical aspects of setting up microphones, getting sounds,
and turning knobs, while Jake keeps the production grounded in the band’s
vision.
9.
You’ve mentioned influences ranging from Celtic Frost to His Hero is Gone. How
do these inspirations manifest in Insect Politics, and what new
elements did you bring to the table?
Influence
is a little funny and I count it showing up both in our initial vision and in
how we extract material from that vision. By the time we started
seriously writing for this record we had a demo, two cassette EP’s, and a 7”
under our belts. Through the process of doing those, we had a pretty firm
grasp on what kind of sound we were going for. The process of envisioning
this album was more evolutionary in terms of building upon our prior work,
where those prior works were in turn trying to meld together the external
influences with our own sensibilities. We were never quite satisfied with
those previous recordings in retrospect, so the album was the final opportunity
to take that initial vision and put it down on wax in the most competent way
possible.
10.
Looking ahead, you hinted that this album contains blueprints for the future.
Can fans expect an evolution in your sound, and what can you tell us about the
next chapter for Misanthropic Aggression?
I don’t
want to paint ourselves into the corner too much but as the record production
was wrapping up we had a conversation about our vision for the next record, and
how it involved leaning into an attitude more solidly grounded in the US black
metal school, especially from the likes of Demoncy. That will be the next
experiment.
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