Blanck Mass – World Eater

The third album from Fuck Buttons' Benjamin John Power is as dark and brilliant as we've come to expect. In an interview with The Skinny last year, FB bandmate Andrew Hung announced that if he was “the buttons,” then Power must surely be “the fuck.” He was speaking specifically about their musical stylings: Hung’s solo offerings at that point had mainly been playful 8-bit recordings made on an old Gameboy. Power’s solo work, on the other hand, sounds altogether more sinister.

The Blanck Mass project has enthralled from the start, delivering two delightful courses of dark, dense electronica. It’s a pattern that continues on World Eater, Blanck Mass’ third outing, and arguably his best yet.

Everything about this record, from the macabre title to the snarling big cat on the cover, and the horror movie stylings of the opening track John Doe’s Carnival of Error, screams aggression. The title is a reference to the destructive nature of human beings, both collectively and individually. The 'world eater' is both the beast inside of each of us and the beast we combine to create as a society, a cancer eating away at the planet we inhabit. That thesis in mind, the album feels like something that has been unleashed from deep within Power: a furious outburst at the state of the world.

Each of the seven tracks are heavy and layered. The sonorous bass and thundering drums are peppered with snippets of melody that feel like sharp gasps of breath, such as the searchlight of a synth wail that pans across the top of the asphyxiating Rhesus Negative, the clipped, soulful vocals on Silent Treatment, or the ripple of water and pop outro that fracture the nigh-on opaque Minnesota / Eas Fors / Naked. World Eater is ferocious and intense, but it's also thrilling and bristling with life – and it’s these contrasts that make it such a blast to listen to.