The Total Sound Of The Undergound

Lelahel Metal

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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Insect Politics | Misanthropic Aggression

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