Heroin

Sunday morning, the sunlight glimpses through the shutter and hurts me, I wake up with resignation and a gigantic hangover, I have tasks to do but I just want to sleep, I feel deeply like shit, in contrast to the euphoria I felt just a few hours ago. I'm going to take advantage of this miserable feeling to channel all the bad vibes transmitted by my painting expressionist-like face and get to the bottom of my own misery while I do the mundane obligatory duties, then I'll take advantage of this state to listen for the first time to "Heroine" by Bongripper, to see how low I can go. I listen to the album while I'm doing the laundry and later while I'm cooking, the fact of being focused on a concrete but not very demanding task makes me submerge easily in the sonic universe that the album creates, it really feels like a trip to an unknown dimension, it's very dense but remains varied, going through different phases but always having a common nexus, it's noisy and chaotic but not in a bad way, I appreciate that it has a meaning and how everything is taking shape in a much larger scheme. There are a lot of sounds that I can't recognize where they come from, but that just adds to the mystery of the album, I sense the darkness of the environment but it doesn't scare me, it fascinates me, it's comfortable even if it's suffocating, it's a context that I feel comfortable in right now. The album ends and I have felt all along that the flow of the album was great, the way the album transitions between the different sections is done in a very clean way, giving that feeling of a very long cohesive track, even though there have been some incredibly noisy parts these have been well crafted beforehand so that their introduction has felt right along with the rest of the features. It's not an album I like more than Hippie Killer but I don't understand why so many people give it negative notes, it's a pretty good album.

Thursday afternoon, I just finished lunch and I have a good time off, I'm in a good mood, why don't I write for a while? I feel like it, now I just have to think of an album I want to write about... Oh I know, I should write my vindictive review of "Heroine", it's a good premise "In defense of Heroine" or something like that, ok then I'm going to listen to it to start writing the first thoughts and ideas to work on them later. I sit in front of the computer, prepare everything and press play.... A few minutes have passed and I'm still in the same position as before, staring at the screen and the empty written document, totally blank ready to be filled by my thoughts, but my mind is blank as well, the album that had made me have a good time one hungover morning not long ago right now was telling me nothing, it feels noisy and annoying, to the point where at times it seems like a random sequence of noises and sounds to create a chaotic and meaningless space. The transitions between segments that previously seemed clean and bright now seem rough and forced, changing the tone abruptly, and that bothers me, it doesn't feel right, it feels poorly executed. And the worst thing of all, it feels very very very slow, last time the 75 minutes flew by, and now each passage feels like an eternity, the album doesn't seem to want to move forward, everything feels the same, I feel like a prisoner, the album is trying to hold me in its chaotic and noisy dimension, but it's not the sound that bothers me, but the feeling that nothing is happening and that no one is in control. I pause the album, and make the decision to write about something else, right now I can't digest what Bongripper was offering me.

Wednesday at sunset, I just finished a review and I'm satisfied with it, I submit it to the queue and the page redirects me to "My Reviews", and there it is, watching me, challenging me, mocking me, the empty draft of "Heroine", I don't know how long it has been there, I refuse to delete it but I haven't opened it for a long time, I feel I want to say something about this release but I still don't know what, but I think about it every time I think about writing a music review but nothing ever comes to my mind, I think that if I listen to it again I could come up with some idea, but I don't feel like listening to it, I never feel like it, I always find an excuse not to do it and that's how time has passed. .. Until now, I just wrote a good review and I'm inspired, it's time, I'm ready to face "Heroine" for once and write everything I have to say. So I put the album up just like the last time, but this time I'm determined that I will reach my goal and finally do justice to this album... The sequence repeats itself, the track feels monotonous, slow, and meaningless, but this time it starts to hurt me, what once before was boring starts to become unpleasant, the noisy environment that it creates starts to be nauseating, those sounds that I couldn't identify their origin and fascinated me now are frustrating me and making me angry, this is not music, it's not even noise, this is.... an attack, the album is attacking me, it wants to hurt me, it is using all the possible means to make me feel bad physically, now I understand why so many people hate this album, this is a fucking joke made by Bongripper to fuck all of us who listen to it, everything sounds so clumsy and obscene because it wants to sound disgusting, the album wants me to disown it, I am hating it, I hate its slowness, I hate how loud it is, I hate its lack of structure, I hate everything that has to do with it. How long have I been listening to it? 20 minutes? it's seemed like 20 hours, I'm exhausted and I haven't written anything. I get up and decide to go to make myself dinner, I may not have written anything but I finally have my ideas clear about the album, I hate it, and next time I will write about it and I will make the most fierce and unleashed critique I have ever written.

Saturday after hours, I'm finishing the quarter term and exams are approaching and I've been studying almost all day, it's late but although I'm tired I don't feel like sleeping, I want a few hours for myself, clear my brain for a while. I go into MA and read a few reviews, and that's when I go into mine, and I see it there again, drafted, still blank, and I decide this is my chance, my brain is not at its full capacity but it won't take me much effort to get into this album and laugh a little at how bad it is. Still, since it's been a while since I last listened to it, I'm going to play it while I write about it to see if it gives me any more ideas. So I begin to write an angry review while the first bars of the album start to play... Soon I stop writing, I'm getting surprised because for some strange reason I'm liking what I'm listening to, I don't understand anything, and while the sonic mass that is "Heroine" starts to increase in intensity, the noises are getting more and more extravagant and dense, each note resonates in my head, I can't discern if the structure is making sense or not. I get up because I'm starting to notice I'm getting disturbed, yes I'm getting disturbed but I don't understand why, there is something about the track that is making every aspect of the music I listen to feel very intense, again I sense that the album is trying to attack me, trying to trap me, but I don't feel it as something unpleasant or that makes me angry, it is making me anxious, it is making me worried, the sounds are too intense, everything is too chaotic and I need order, I need calm, and it is giving me the opposite, it's... scaring me. I am not alone in my house but I really feel alone, as if I were in another universe, in another dimension, I feel like screaming but no sound comes out of my mouth, I feel like taking off my headphones but a part of me does not want to stop appreciating all that it is making me feel. Some soft guitar picking wakes me up from the trance, I'm sitting with my stare off and I don't know how long I've been listening to this track, it's still giving me a bad vibe but I've found some refuge, one that I know won't last long, but I'm thankful it's there. I pull myself together and stand still as I let the minutes pass until I complete listening to the album in its entirety. I don't understand anything, in part I have returned to feel and appreciate some things that I didn't do since the first time I listened to it, the structure doesn't seem that chaotic anymore, but well spun to reflect different emotional stages, the transitions feel clean again, the dark atmosphere is oppressive but charming at the same time, everything is very confusing and contradictory. The album ends, I appreciate the silence for a few minutes and I look at the screen again, where I find a half-written text that doesn't reflect at all what I just felt, so I remove it and I find myself in front of an empty screen, again.

I think to myself, "Can I somehow explain in words all what this album has made me feel?"