Sometimes a joke album or concept can have terrible consequences, such as Tommy Lee’s side projects or Vanilla Ice; but sometimes, and these are fairly rare, they can become something beautiful.
Such is the project that is Hatebean: featuring members of the Jason Ellis Show off Faction, SiriusXM channel 41 in the mornings, the band has transcended being a joke on the CEO of Faction into a formidable industrial music powerhouse, sounding like a cross between Nine Inch Nails and Ministry.
With their first album; having just dropped this last week, Fetusinfetu is a sweet audio trip into the terrifying concept of a set of twins born into one body, but of two minds. Or, as the track Heinous provides, “One is one, instead of Two.”
Sonically, the album brings a wide range of style to the table, as per the musical tastes of the differing beings involved in Hatebean. Much of it is a heavy industrial metal style (Heinous, Nightmare, Twin Within, Ventriliquist, et al.), but ballads (Blue, Out of Mind) and other complex musical styles come out along the runtime of this album. Twining together the horrific nature of two minds inside one body, the narrative is quite cohesive and tells the story of the struggle from it’s hellacious beginning or their birth, to finish with the acceptance and reconciliation of the warring minds/souls to share the body (SPOILER ALERT).
Hatebean also utilizes some lovely classic touches to round out the sounds of Fetusinfetu, such as saxophone as a major instrument on Motionless and Obedient, Organ andsimilar key instruments as found on Out of Mind, and then coupled them with some appeasing pure, straightforward rock as found on Round and Round. The diversity found on this album is startling, especially in a 46 minute(ish) runtime, and when the last two tracks, Revelations and Amen, are completely different (the theme, as it were) from the rest of the album, Revelations is the actual reading of the titular book of the Bible, and it’s intensity is breathtaking, unexpected, and quite beautiful in its heavy recitation. Amen is a throwback to how an album would almost present a conclusion in it’s last song, providing closure, emotionally and almost physically, allowing the record a final long breath. As it goes with Fetusinfetu, it acts as a closing Magnum Opus, with classical music ripped into guitar strings, ominous intonations from the vocalist, sound bites intercut over killer lead guitar, many bands can’t do this much with an entire EP. And there’s what sounds like a Ukulele.
Fetusinfetu has sealed itself as an incredible first album by which to measure others, with the caveat that all the people who are mainly involved with the band are not musically inclined, historically, AT ALL (except for the intense love of Pink Floyd), and thankfully we were graced with the perfectly mastered results before year’s end. Hatebean needs to be spread far and wide, due to the quality of this work in pieces and as a whole.
Fetusinfetu by Hatebean is available at www.hatebean.com (might be slightly troublesome), iTunes, and of course Amazon Music
ALL HAIL JIZZ CULT!