Trust.
This is the word that the latest record from noise merchants Uniform, is based on. The original foundation of the band has been supplemented with the bass work of Interpol’s Brad Truax and drummers Michael(s) Sharp and Blume. Each of the members coming together with a level of trust bestowed upon them to produce a sizzling expansive backdrop for the agonising painful vocals of Berdan. The record deals with Berdan’s long term fight against bulimia, his strung out pain rings over every second of the record, lingering in your ear even when he isn’t aurally assaulting you.
The opening track ‘American Standard’ is 20 minutes of exploratory SWANS like gazey noise, beginning with Berdan looking at himself in the mirror, “a part of me [a part of me], but it can’t be me [but it can’t be me],” screamed into glass and repeated back with a haunting gang shout as his own fractured reflection shouts back. Confirming and denying in equal parts the things that are shown in the facsimile of the perception of one’s self. The music sweeps with huge nauseating waves of droning angst whilst the vocals continue, eventually dropping into a doomy riff, only for the expectations to be undone as it moves back into the expansive shoegaze sound. Through all of this there is a constant tension, something that makes you squirm whilst you listen, it’s unsettling, but in a beautifully graceful way. As soon as the track seems to settle, you are swept back up into the maelstrom swirled around and spit out, bewildered, mesmerised, and left with more questions than when you started. The song rounds out with a black metal inspired faster section, here Berdan explores the deeper torment, calling back to familial times in his childhood and stories with his siblings, still the pain rings out but the instruments swirl about as though stood in the eye of a storm.
After the opening you are not afforded any respite as the album immediately drops into the single, “This Is Not A Prayer,” a pummeling dual drummed cacophony of sludge, anger, and desperation dragged out over seven more minutes of hard to digest but ultimately rewarding music. Ben Greenberg’s masterfully arranged music really holds all of the disparate elements of the record together, creating a soundscape that defies any genre you try to throw at it, any label you attempt to staple to its forehead simply slides off in the expansive bloom of ideas, that are driven together like cars crashing.
“Clemency,” descends into driving noise guitar, with bass lines that pummel and a constant drumming that becomes maddening over the 7 minutes of the track. It’s a difficult thing for a longer track like this to never lose it’s impetus, but even at the end of it, it’s got the same level of energy that it started with, this is one song that needs to be experienced live, it’s likely everyone in the room would need a breather afterwards. Uniform have produced a real piece of art here, not only does it explore difficult subject matter, with members of the band laying themselves bare for all to see, it does so by grasping at so many different genres and ideas whilst remaining cohesive, painful, adverse to tropes and ultimately rewarding. Forty minutes isn’t the longest run time, but you’ll be forgiven for going for a lie down once you’re done, because it truly is a journey, not a slog, more like a dystopian epic, wandering the wastes of illness, sadness and deep introspection.