Horse Rotorvator (1986)

Artist: Coil
Release Year: 1986

Rating: 7/10

Track Listing: 1) The Anal Staircase; 2) Slur; 3) Babylero; 4) Ostia; 5) Herald; 6) Penetralia; 7) Ravenous; 8) Circles of Mania; 9) Blood from the Air; 10) Who by Fire; 11) The Golden Section; 12) The First Five Minutes After Death.

I must be eternally poisoned by the internet age, because "Babylero" just reminds me of the Hamster Dance.

That aside, what I like about this album is its willingness to take the usual darling aspects of the human experience, like sex and childbirth and togetherness, and reveal them as horrific and grotesque.  Yeah, I did just slam the first album for seeming to try too hard at this, but here it works much better, and a lot of that has to do with the melodies.  No, there aren't many moments for a normie to dance to, but there's more dynamism in the motifs-- enough to allow a listener to hear music instead of just music-shaped cacophony.  Usually.

Sure, there are the usual edgelord cudgels like "The Anal Staircase", but at least that one has a groove.  Better, check out the demented shuffle of "Slur"-- or, better yet-- the lush, poisoned-honey seduction of "Ostia", with those MIDI sounds mimicking the harpsichord in some kind of Gothic overture.  "You can hear the bones humming", indeed!  "Who by Fire" is listenable and has a nice, lurching feel to it to complement the great lyrics, even if the melody is a bit Mother Goose-sounding.  But whoever decided to throw in those Arab-esque chants deserves a raise.  Even the more challenging pieces, like "Penetralia", have their moments, helped along by the pulverizing guitar riffs and drums.  This is how to do "death music" well.  

Still, Horse Rotorvator is not my favorite thing in the world.  I don't mind the drones of "Blood from the Air", but did they really have to include all those dissonant sound segments throughout?  What good are those?  Still better than the narration in "The Golden Section", though.  This isn't "The Gift"-- just let that dreadful, ominous march roll on uninterrupted.

The one place where the wheels really come off is on "Circles of Mania".  This could have been a great swing jazz satire, if not for the incessant vocal screeching that goes far overboard.  This is one of those moments where Coil seem to veer back into performance art-- fine if that's the intent, but I don't enjoy it.  I'd rather hear Tom Waits do this kind of thing, even if he wouldn't dare touch the "fucking the ground" segment.  Win some, lose some.