Turpitude

So here we are, finally, at the end of the straße, my 13th review of a musician, his band(s) and a career that spanned almost four decades, a noteworthy and almost unparalleled musical metamorphosis that started amidst the Krautrock age and perished amidst the vapid post-thrash scene, three years into the 90s, thirty years ago. This was Heinz Mikus and Risk’s last stop, and given that they went out in such a disappointing manner, one have to thank the rock and metal gods for their mercy. Turpitude painfully and unceremoniously exposes the final transformation of the Risk entity, as hinted before, into an excruciatingly boring groove metal outfit. The passion is utterly drained, the beloved Hell’s Animals replaced by the average occult sigil, dressed in totally 90s color palette fashion, the musical ambition forever gone. This is the inconsequential final chapter that shouldn’t ever been made and comes to spoil the series with an unfitting ending.

Most songs are stuck in plodding mid-tempo, featuring a Pantera-like sound but without Dimebag’s strong traits at the axe, and a painfully boring rhythmic section that virtually adds nothing to each track. Every one of them feels overlong and monotonic. There’re still some minor traces of the band’s thrashy roots, as the main rhythmic riff of “Materialized” or the somewhat faster “Not True”. Heimi Mikus’ vocals, in particular, feel tired (and get tiresome really quick), devoid of any excitement and joy, as if he’s lost the will to rock ‘n’ roll and he’s just singing because he has to. While he never was an amazing frontman, at least he tried in Risk’s back catalogue, sometimes even adding some personality and uniqueness to its songs. But he’s not alone in his failure to conjure up some amusement here; the whole band feels as if they’re playing just to fulfill a contract, rather because they’re passionate about it.

Even though a slower and darker mood was already established in their previous work, 92’s The Reborn, at least that album showcased some hunger and ambition by Mikus’ crew, creating a mid-paced, atmospheric, and sometimes even foreboding brand of thrash that wasn’t and still isn’t very common. Turpitude on the other hand, being a half-thrash record in all the ample meaning of the term, only possesses some occasional pseudo-saving grace elements, which are Roman Keymer and Christian Sumser’s guitar solos. Nothing too fancy or memorable, but sufficiently serviceable and even enjoyable at times, the manage to make you remember you’re listening to an album, cutting like a hot knife through butter all the greyish mud of the music. A good example, and probably my favorite of the bunch, is the one on “Squeeze My Skull and Brains”, even if it’s the only salvageable item from that composition.

With pessimistic but unconsequential lyrics and a compressed production adding insult to injury, the band certainly shows “No Mercy” to the listener, with almost 50 minutes of generic groove metal as their swansong. A sad way to go, but it had to happen someday. It just didn’t had to be this way. So for now, it’s farewell to Heinz Mikus career, which I doubt he’ll resume in the future. But along his musical legacy, however underappreciated, underground and undercooked, he also has a son, Dennis, who appears to have followed into his father’s footsteps, so maybe I’ll check out his own path in the future.

Ashamed or not, I have to admit that, although I got each of the band’s earlier efforts pretty much on the spot, upon appearance in the studios/shops, I only got a hold of the album reviewed here in 1999, the first reason being that it never showed up in Bulgaria; and the second one being that I didn’t quite make a big effort in finding out how the Risky saga had gone on after the excellent “The Reborn”.

The first listen left me mildly amused, largely cause listening to an album released six years earlier, a total surrender to the fashionable at the time groovy/post-thrashy vogues, at the dawn of a rising retro metal resurgence wave wasn’t a heart-breaking experience at all; also bearing in mind that I wasn’t exactly a raving Risk maniac. I even detected similarities with the preceding opus… yep, no kidding, considering that the latter was far from an all-out old school thrash assault, it wasn’t that hard to locate the same cavity in the musicians’ soul where this turpitude had crawled out of.

But the thing is that it’s this word, “crawl”, that describes the entire 50-min pageant smacked here. In fact, I’d like to throw the label “lethargic crawl”, which perfectly fits the music on offer, a most non-risky endeavour if there was one, the delivery, save for the lively shorter “Not True”, barely touching the mid-tempo parameters. One may wish to applaud the band for steadfastly sticking to such a plodding cumbersome approach, but the majority will listen yawning occasionally, trying to figure if the more dramatic developments on “The Day Will Come” could pass for something intriguing; or if the balladic sentimental veneer of “Hopeless Ground” can be viewed a digression, being a tad less groove-laden than the rest. Drops of vitality get squeezed out of “And We Don't Care” eventually, a near-thrasher with cool screamy lead sections, but almost instantly afterwards its title becomes a slogan with a string of samey dragging tunes… true, no one cares here, the overbearing groove-fest wrapped on more seriously, also mysteriously, by the doomy/balladic crawl “Serious Mysterious”… but seriously, this is a fitting epitaph to such an anti-climactic, devoid of vitality recording, and could be viewed a plus of some sorts.

Heinz Mikus sounds plain tired and jaded here, his subdued recitals still passing for singing, but more often than not it seems like he’s indulged in a listless pessimistic monologue, an introverted, not totally illogical choice that may have been intended for his consummation only, and probably to justify the misanthropic album title. It’s quite obvious that he’s been replaced by the metal station, and it wasn’t him delivering the daily horror news anymore… the thing is that his auditioning for the numetal media tycoons didn’t prove fruitful, either; those were looking for someone more confrontational, more vociferous, one to scare away the lurking panteras and the other hells’ animals… but not one to lull them into a receptive hypnotic state, and to make them stick around forever. It’s obvious that this soothing vocal therapy has worked on his colleagues as everyone else performs with the same mindset, like the team was forced to accept the new trends, left with no choice but to produce a fitting turpitude… sorry, tribute to them. Well, it shows, if that was the case, the lack of enthusiasm and motivation, a tiresome ponderous modern chuggorama which this otherwise pretty good batch didn’t quite deserve as a farewell gesture.

It seems like the guys find (dirty) resurfacing on the contemporary music horizon a risky endeavour; one of the few old school teams that haven’t grabbed the guitars and mikes yet… how about starting with a faithful breath again? I personally don't mind warming up with fist-pumping classic heavy metal hymns, before switching to more threatening, more hazardous speed/thrashy statements.

Risk is a great band that put out plenty of top-notch thrash and groovy metal, but their final sendoff was a massive disappointment and deserves to be called out as such. I can understand a slip from a band -- hey, it happens. And, to be sure, stylistic changes were afoot before Turpitude came along. The Reborn -- a fantastic, groove-laden effort -- was already a significant break from the band's thrash roots. Heck, the band itself existed in a far different form before even becoming Risk. So without question one cannot expect them to stick with one style to the bitter end. That wouldn't be fair, and so I will not slight them merely for the changeup.

But this is different. Turpitude is sub-par, not well thought out, and ultimately chock full of boring material that needed much more work before release.

The CD opens with Cry, which begins with a Phantasmagoria-like strum of acoustic chords, then launches into a promising detuned grooved-out progression. Heinz's vocals are lithium-esque disinterested talking, serving as a counterpoint to the chorus scream: "and I CRY!!!." OK, well not exactly imaginative -- but still, this is probably one of the better songs on the album, if for no other reason than it has a nice rhythm and pounds its point home with the emotion it sets out to achieve. By the end of the song, however, I found myself wanting something.....else. Something additional that just wasn't there.

...and the same theme is continued with Materialized. Another slow, plodding riff that seems to go nowhere. Heinz deciding not to sing again. Hey, I'm a huge fan of Be No More, which is the same kind of performance. But the difference is, Be No More is actually fucking awesome. This just meanders around, chords changing but going nowhere. The chorus is alright I guess. Again, it sounds alot like Phantasmagoria, but much, much worse.

I mean, you can't just pound the same eighth-note palm muting on random chords. Come on. Risk is supposed to know better than that. They've been in the business for ages. What the hell. Write a fucking riff. We already know you can do it.

Not True picks up the tempo, and generally succeeds, but is nearly ruined with a bush-league shouted chorus. I mean, seriously? We go from awesome monk chanting to garage band shout choruses? Wow.

The 2nd half of the CD sees the band engaging in a lot of minimalist stomping, such as with the mid-tempo pounder Squeeze My Skull and Brains -- a song which, if nothing else, will bring a smile to your face for the title. The music itself is grinding and generally effective, but somewhat unremarkable. Stripping down the riffage and compositions is an interesting idea, but it's a tricky business. Playing simpler music is only effective when it's catchy. Here it isn't. It's a morass. Just random palm-muting and stomping, punctuated by vocal lines that aren't all that memorable. Case in point: Show No Mercy. And really, any number of other tracks as well. In short, Risk doesn't pull it off.

There are a few better moments, such as the strangely alluring ballad Hopeless Ground, which sits in a well of depression and wallows there with good results, until upping the ante with an effective distorted rhythm and solo comp to the end of the tune.

And interestingly enough, the closing track Serious Mysterious, which sounds plenty like someone really REALLY liked Phantasmagoria, works in its own wandering, dazed-out way.

But overall Turpitude is a CD that shouldn't have been released. Not like this. Someone needed to ask the question, "is this good enough?" Because the answer would have been NO. And then the boys could have gotten down to work, fixed the problems, and put out worthy final record. I really hate to pan a band as good as Risk, and it's a fucking shame it had to end like this.

Turpitude is the 5th and final album from Risk, and it's just as well, because this the first upon which the ambition of the band seemed to finally catch up with them in years. The content is not a far cry from its predecessor The Reborn, but the band had sacrificed some of the epic compositions there for a more bland repository of atmosphere, dull power/thrash. There are very few tracks here which provoke the urge for even a second listen, and without exception these are the ones that sound closest to out-takes of The Reborn. When comparing that album to the band's entertaining early work like The Ratman EP or The Daily Horror News, one can hear the strained but not unnatural progression. But line this up against the debut and you have to wonder 'where did all the spirit and fun disappear to?'

Straight down the drain. The acoustic intro to "Cry" cedes to a basic series of slow, smudged riffs that serve only as a catalyst to the more interesting, swarthy vocal melody, while a mystical guitar line hides off in the backdrop. It's not awful, but really needed to be followed with some energy, which "Materialized" is not, just another pedestrian stream of dull chugged mutes that accompany similar vocals to the first track. There are many other indistinct tracks here, like the groovy but forgettable "So Weird" with its awkward chorus, "And We Don't Care" or "Show No Mercy", which sounds like a half-retread of "Materialized". At best, you get some modern power/thrash with similarities to late 90s Rage: "Squeeze My Skull and Brains" and the sad "Hopeless Ground", but even these sound like the band had thrown in the towel, and not fit to even shine the boots of The Reborn.

It's a terrible thing, when a band like Risk dishevels at the seams, after so many years, starting as Faithful Breath in the damned 70s. What's even sadder is that all of the members here seem to have given up on metal entirely after this recording, retiring to their families and other interests. Turpitude was not the proper note to leave on, almost as if the 'wrongdoing' implication of the title should be taken literally. But the saga of the monkey, crocodile, hippo and piranha will always live on through their inspirational debut album and the reasonable qualities of the follow-ups that led up to this one.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com