Taking their name from a moniker adopted by Oscar Wilde on release from prison in 1897, Sebastian Melmoth describe themselves as ‘four caged monkeys that sing disquieting protest songs as they compulsively masturbate into their morning cereal.’ ‘Sebastian Melmoth is not a horny, talentless folk singer,but a conceptual sonic art project consisting of various revolving personnel,’ they inform us. The band’s personnel list is no more illuminating, listing the current members as ‘Badger Senseless / Madame Paws / Scrappy Doo / Axis Mundi’. Nevertheless, on the strength of this release, it would be reasonable to conclude that they like their literary references almost as much as a good five-knuckle shuffle.‘I’m waiting for Godot but he’s bound to be late’, the singer intones flatly on the minimalist ‘Waiting for Godot’.
It begins with a combination of drones and sampled dialogue that create an atmospheric opening in the form of ‘The Human Condition’ provides the perfect build for the explosively dense bass buzz of ‘From the Depths’, over which the bleak lyrics are delivered in an almost gothic monotone. There’ a hint of Sans about ‘My God’, both in the Gira-like vocal stylings and the crushing, repetitive riff and punishing percussion. ‘Accidentally Grotesque’ couples commentary on consumerist capitalism with a neat slice of new-wave electro, while ‘Feodi Occuli’ comes on like a cross between the xx and early New Order.
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‘The Nausea of Being’ is a dark album, and this is nowhere more keenly exemplified than on the lugubrious six-minute ‘Mauersyndrom’ or the nightmarish ‘The Incredulity of Hip Cats on Lysergic Acid’. That said, it’s not without its lighter moments: there’s a dry humour lurking in ‘Paintstripper Blues’, but against the squall of feedback that forms the body of the eleven-minute closer ‘Godemiche’, it’s only a brief flicker of light. That’s by no means a criticism, though: ‘The Nausea of Being’ sustains the heavy atmosphere for its duration, and its execution matches its concept.
Sebastian Melmoth Online
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