Skinny Puppy - Last Rights

Skinny Puppy

Last Rights

One man’s breakdown is another man’s pleasure. That’s what I always say. I love to see other people’s suffering. I love to hear their painful cries. And when there isn’t enough suffering, I go out and cause some more. But I can’t anymore. That’s what got me in here as a permanent resident of The Anchora Institute For The Criminally Insane. “An anchor on reality,” the good doctor says. Fuck him.

Now I have to content myself with Fangoria magazines, the Star-Ledger, and whatever tapes my buddy Ron can bring to me. He knows not to bring any Paula Abdul or that Clapton crap. He just supplies me with the best audio journals of pain and misery.

Yesterday he got me the new Skinny puppy release Last Rights. He knows I love Skinny Puppy. They have always written great songs of torment like “Chainsaw,” “Testure,” and “Smothered Hope,” so I expected no less from this new one. I was ecstatic to hear that this is their most agonizing album yet.

Whereas on their previous albums the pain that they have conveyed has been that of others, on this tape the pain is personal. The music delves into Ogre’s decaying mind and we are witness to his total nervous collapse. Every song is a gasping confession from the depths of his tortured soul. Ah, the sweet ecstasy of his agony!

The themes that Last Rights deals with are the many facets of a deteriorating human mind. Songs such as “Inquisition” and “Knowhere?” deal with paranoia and persecution. “Lust Chance” and “Love In Vein” screech about the delusions we all suffer from that can often lead to violence. I am terribly acquainted with those delusions.

Musically, Last Rights is Skinny Puppy’s least accessible recording in the nine years of their existence. And for a group known for their harsh sound, that is truly saying something. This recording is fraught with dissonant beats and buzzing wails, tweaked and faded in and out randomly. Buried beneath the cacophony are samples of distant whispering voices chanting cryptic messages. This tape takes to the extreme the sound they began with VIVISECT VI and cultivated in last year’s Too Dark Park.

There are some standout tracks on this tape. “Inquisition,” the first single, is destined for the dance floor with its catchy dance beat. “Killing Game” is actually a pretty ballad- or at least sounds like one, until you listen to its lyrics’ overtones of sadism and torture. And “Riverz End,” a continuation to the song “Rivers” from 1989’s Rabies, is a beat-driven atmospheric instrumental that for some reason makes part of my anatomy tingle with delight.

Last Rights has an air of finality to it. The title, a play on the Last Rites of burial, also references the fact that this is their last contractual album under Canadian label Nettwerk records, which has nurtured them since their (snicker) puppyhood. Listening to it, you get the feeling of a group coming to terms with its past, both thematically and sonically. But not in a way that signifies forward movement. More like a way of closing up a wonderful can of worms before they have a chance to dry up in the sun.

Perhaps this is why I am getting a paranoid feeling that they are breaking up. But I really shouldn’t worry about it too much. They won’t break up. And if they do, I’ll find a way out of this hole and wring their scrawny, little necks. After all, who else could provide the sweet sonic misery they do? So, they will continue to appease my hunger for pain, even if it’s with their dying breath.