The ESA track 'Your anger is a gift' has been making regular passes through my ears recently and I think that's a perfect way to sum up 'Rats Come Together'. Jamie Blacker's portrayed anger in the theme and his visceral vocal contortions taking aim at the world in this release, are most definitely a gift in terms of having created yet another masterpiece of music for one of the most impressive alternative artists of all time. This single has given me my new three favourite tracks! Not bad for a single aye?! The INTSEC remix is the heaviest rave track this side of hell. Brutally good. One of the best things about doing Elektro Vox reviews is that I listen to a new release and think 'oooh that's great' but when I sit down and give something my full attention and zone out to the song and only the song I'm hearing with some good headphones..
Well, it's amazing how a lot of tracks can sound entirely different and have incredible effects on your body if you pay attention to it.
I often feel that most people won't take the time to sit and experience music that deeply usually or ever get around to hearing the other tracks on a single or EP which are also mesmerising.
That's why I try to write about how incredible a lot of releases are in the hopes that at least one person gets to appreciate something far more than they otherwise would have.
Now I sit down to review ESA: Electronic Substance Abuses 'Rats come together'.. and my Gods.. Wow..
I am struggling to put sensation in to words for this review.
In fact I had to walk away several times, completely stuck for words..
Check out the video because Jamie has become not only a true master of music but of film with every video he creates, proving that music videos are still VERY relevant and important when done with love, thought, and care..
One day we will get out of this mess. Wont we?
With ever increasing divisions reaching dangerous levels of unrest internationally, fuelled by the profiteering attention hungry media platforms.
An unnamed red hooded runner attempts to escape the onslaught of information, mis-information and disinformation.
Follow him as he risks everything to warn the past of the dark data overload that is to come.
The new single and music video from ESA - ‘Rats Come Together’ is a snarling and gnarly Industrial Punk Metal speed blast. Full of grinding guitars and ferocious Gabber beats, interspersed with symphonic Organ emotion drifts. Even after 20 years of bleak black beats, ESA has never sounded so dynamically rabid.
This release also includes the slightly more thoughtful ‘Thrashing Fraud’ mix (also by ESA) and a pure Gabber rage remix from fellow UK beat maker - INTSEC.
‘Rats Come Together’ is a piece of madness for the gym, for speeding down an empty highway and for the frustration at the world we are all collectively attempting to navigate and survive.
Accompanying this release is a wonderfully rich and cinematic 80's VHS inspired music video, asking you to join in on the escape from a modern world full of mis-information and hate, that promises to be up there with the very best of ESA’s music videos.
This is one hell of a ride and one hell of an escape that ESA is inviting you on.
STOP A MOMENT!
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Review
Firstly, don't you dare listen to this or watch the video quietly through your phone speakers. Go put on some damn good headphones, wack the volume up, close your eyes and sit back as if ready to watch an orchestra.. That's the level or respect the first listen commands, but I doubt in any way shape or form that you'll be able to sit still on this rollercoaster ride of heavy audio contortion. I've known for a long time that Jamie started off in Black Metal but even though his take on industrial and electronic music has always been some of the heaviest and brutal around, I've never been able to point to a track and say 'yea.. I can hear the Black Metal background coming through' but with 'Rats Come Together' you really can. ESA has always been the diamond standard in merging genres and experimenting with mash ups of completely opposing music types with fantastically great results. One such example being the early 1920-30's 'Come and Find me' on Designer Carnage..
With this single release, across all three tracks you have industrial, techno, gabber, JAZZ! (WHAT??), metal, opera, pipe organs, and more in to what should rightly be a complete Fkn mess and yet.. Blacker has cooked possibly the finest three course meal of 2024 thus far. You may as well at this point compare ESA to the mastery of Da Vinci or Michelangelo. Yet this is a man who pushes harder and harder because he cannot and will not settle for anything less than perfection, and as one of my favourite quotes of all times goes..
"But not perfect?" "Never perfect. Perfection goal that changes. Never stops moving. Can chase, cannot catch." - Abathur, Starcraft 2
In fact Jamie recently edited some interview footage with me a couple years back. (There's a couple others to see on his socials too) We touched on subjects like imposter syndrome in his work..
OKAY, finally time for me to talk about the songs themselves.
'Rats Come Together'.. The pipe organ you initially here at the beginning and then later on is Jamie Playing the Father Willis Organ in Huddersfield Town hall (1860) which you can see him play blindfolded whilst singing, in the music video.. an impressive feat! A vocal sample kicks with what ESA does best.. The best electronic drums on the scene! Compliment this with beat perfect lyrics, a strained synth that gives the impression of a swarm, something insidious, and then of course.. EVEN heavier drums - as well as some ASMR worthy guitar with the A and S in this case standing for aggressive and speedy. Gods damn ESA has perfected this high tempo powernoise industrial! It's filthy, and it's as audibly delicious as it is jaw breakingly CRUNCHY.
The fierce and throaty lyrics give the song it's meaning of pointing out the horrific people at the top who keep the rat race - a rat race and that it's time to say NO MORE and why the Red Hood tries to warn the past. (Nice little Sci-Fi touch to it all)
I see things for what could have been Segregation so still it can’t be seen Feral and final. The ever upward spiral The rats are swimming in that cream We can be calm if you stop and put down the pen We can love again if you fight off the offend The rats come together On thrashing tails they are born The rats come together Stripes of flesh that they have worn The rats come together In their f****g dirty horde It’s not fraud because it’s their fraud A brief second of.. Soft Jazz? - amongst the chaos at 1:37 and then back in head first to the heart racing firepower that ESA unleashes.
The track slows around 2:00 for the full organ section and the softer, more Gothic tinted vocals that Jamie has chosen to use rather than his usual throat ripping growls. The lyrics are full of depth and almost sarcastic accusation.
I, I know. It lifts you up so high. Survive the throws. So strong. P*****g on your own homes. May your high be forever.
3:20 returns us to the fury, the high speed escape of the Red Hood, and the sheer brilliance of this high tempo dance floor destroyer. This would be incredible in club but I would be very amused to see people try to keep up the intensity of dance and movement that it would require! This is a track for the hardest of raves, the fiercest of mosh pits, and the heaviest of lifts. (Gym anthem!)
This track is perfection! It plays out with a softer, calmer melody of what Jamie played on the organ and it is idyllic in ever sense.
Now for the Thrashing Fraud Mix.. Also by ESA
If the original version, is in my opinion, perfection.. This track is an astral projection journey into that perfection at an impressive 7 minutes and 17 seconds long. That brief touch of jazz in the previous track now unwinds itself in to a full and smooth introduction to this track.. snares, trumpets, finger clicks, smooth vocals and all! Just before 0.40 the drums and main melody return with a choral sample.
This return of the main melody is slower in tempo, smoother, less aggressive but no less impressive or enjoyable. The choral and vocal samples as well as some other nice little additions pepper the track full of flavour.
At 1:51, Jamie uses an impressive break up and repeat of his vocals in to a bizarre yet brilliant loop leaving way for the guitar to have a softer introduction back in to the overall soundscape again.
This feels tribal, ancient yet modern, an exploration of the new and the ancestral. The way drums have the power to awaken the primacy within us never ceases to amaze me.
Jamie's vocals once again get a chop change, repeat, and rehash treatment which is undeniably refreshing and new as an instrument experimentation in to what can be used to make a song - a song, and I'd be hard pressed to name anyone else that has done something similar, and definitely not to this level of smooth excellence. Of course, it wouldn't be an ESA release without some smooth, ethereal female vocals somewhere, and this beautifully brief addition brings the melody to a truly satisfying and benevolent close. Wonderous.
Finally.. The INTSEC remix!
HOLY HOT FUDGE BATMAN!
If you loved the last two tracks..
(or not? Really? WTF is wrong with you??)..
This one is going to KICK. YOUR. ASS!
I have endless love for this.
INTSEC first came to my attention at Infest festival a couple years back playing one of the heaviest industrial techno sets I have ever had the nirvanic pleasure of raving to. So to see and hear him on this release working with ESA is *chefs kiss* First of all, make sure you're wearing your BEST headphones.
INTSEC
This starts off very deceptive, an incredibly soft and slow version of the melody that played out the end of the original and that was also played on the organ brings a steady sense of calm and peace. The first organ distortion note bringing up the intensity slowly, binaural beats teasing your ears until 1:32 when the Rats once again.. come together.. 1:52 BLOWS your fkn ears out through your chest!!
This is gabber industrial done so, so damn right! Playing this at low volume would be a crime. This might even be my new favourite dance track of all time. It's fast, its furious, it beat and pace perfect. THIS is the definition of Electronic Body MOVEMENT. Jamie's lyrical chorus to this tempo is spot on at around 2:40, and at 3:00 you get treated to MORE drums, more beats - a profound foot stomping conflagration. At 4:00 we get a much needed moment to catch our breaths as it turns in to a touch of trance but not for long, before the 5 minute mark, mid tempo heavy and methodical drums bring you back to fight for your life on the dancefloor battlefield. This track is the fiercest piece of brilliance this side of rave, and for now, I damn well stand by that! If you doubt me.. Test that assumption at your convenience.
Conclusion
'Rats Come Together' is the masterpiece offering of a huge amount of work and love from ESA. This release breaks so many boundaries, genres, rules, and is genuinely thought provoking as a masterpiece should be. In my opinion 'Rats Come Together' is the most accomplished ESA single to date far exceeding the perfection goal lines that are set with each of his releases. Jamie's dedication to his craft, story telling, and media experimentation in both sound and film puts him at the very pinnacle of what it is to achieve greatness in the alternative music world.
Each track is entirely different in their own rightful ways, from the fury or the single version, to the astral projective journey of the mindful 'Thrashing Fraud' remix, and to the rarest of Rave diamonds with the INTSEC remix, 'Rats Come Together' is by far the finest single release of our age.
Long live the king!
Thank you!
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