Taken from Bonemachine’s second album – that’s Why Can’t We Catch The Liars?, for the record – God Save You (Amerika) mainly features full-on, scuzzy distortion and throbbing bass-lines. Quieter, threatening verses with a hissed vocal line erupt into electronic noise, occasionally breaking down into sampled information on the effects of stalking upon its victims and the odd wail of sirens.
All of which, taken as a whole, makes one suspect that the desperate howls of “God save you A-mer-i-ka” are to be taken as sarcastic in intention: this is dark, disaffected noise balanced uncertainly between hatred and a slackerish, jeering irony. The rock guitars (there’s, like, almost something approaching a solo at one point…) lend it some definition but they can’t even get close to overwhelming the gutter-level organic feeling of the sampled, looping beats; nor can they clean up the aura of edgy, heel-dragging-yet-still-potent violent intent.
That intent may be a bit ambiguous - Bonemachine are pissed with 'Amerika', I'm sure, and almost certainly with stalkers, but why the two are connected or, indeed, whether they are, I'm not sure - but I don't think that matters. I may not be quite sure whose side Bonemachine are on, but they’ve nailed their slightly-blurred colours to an impressive musical mast.
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7's Score