Liberteer – Better To Die On Your Feet Than Live On Your Knees (Relapse Records)
In his book A Language Older Than Words, environmentalist Derrick Jensen writes “every morning when I awake I ask myself whether I should write or blow up a dam. I tell myself I should keep writing, though I’m not sure that’s right.” This idea of a creative act as a substitute for a destructive one calls to mind a variety of questions: whether the former act should rightly be considered the more passive alternative, whether an act in which the ends justify the means could lay claim to a higher degree of efficacy than one that attempts to win hearts and minds, whether either could hope to impede the world’s degradation and oppression. I mention this not because I claim to have any answers, but because if this unrealized inclination towards direct action is strong in Jensen, I can only imagine how powerful it would be in multi-instrumentalist Matthew Widener, whose debut album as Liberteer is one of the most furious and unconventional diatribes against the excesses and oppressive machinations of modern society to which recent years have borne witness.
Liberteer – Better To Die On Your Feet Than Live On Your Knees (Relapse Records)
In his book A Language Older Than Words, environmentalist Derrick Jensen writes “every morning when I awake I ask myself whether I should write or blow up a dam. I tell myself I should keep writing, though I’m not sure that’s right.” This idea of a creative act as a substitute for a destructive one calls to mind a variety of questions: whether the former act should rightly be considered the more passive alternative, whether an act in which the ends justify the means could lay claim to a higher degree of efficacy than one that attempts to win hearts and minds, whether either could hope to impede the world’s degradation and oppression. I mention this not because I claim to have any answers, but because if this unrealized inclination towards direct action is strong in Jensen, I can only imagine how powerful it would be in multi-instrumentalist Matthew Widener, whose debut album as Liberteer is one of the most furious and unconventional diatribes against the excesses and oppressive machinations of modern society to which recent years have borne witness.
Widener has done time in bands like Exhumed, the County Medical Examiners, and Cretin, and while the hyperspeed blasting peddled by all those bands might offer some indication of Liberteer’s approach, the similarities don’t extend much further. For Better To Die On Your Feet…, Widener employs song structures which possess a degree of clarity and cohesion rarely seen in grindcore. It can be difficult to tell due to the overwhelming speed, but most of the songs are even in a major key, which is definitely a rarity with this sort of thing. He then augments the heavier elements with a wide array of other instruments – horn passages, string sections, banjo, mandolin, and flute all contribute a sweeping, martial air to the music. These elements aren’t simply used as aesthetic flourish or as an occasional interlude, either. They’re well-integrated into the songs, a disorienting timbral juxtaposition at first, but ultimately a unique method of accenting the music’s triumphant melodic components without seeming hokey (though I do have to note that when these elements pop up on “Sweat For Blood” they sound exactly like the training montage music from Rocky IV – not that that’s a bad thing though). The album is also sequenced so that there is no pause in between songs, which, in combination with structural themes that recur throughout multiple songs, gives the album an aesthetic cohesion that, even at its most aggressive, is almost symphonic.
But while the music is often structured to sound like some victory march for the oppressed of the world, the rest of the album’s content seems considerably more aware of the amount of work necessary to actualize such a thing. Referencing Emiliano Zapata, William Butler Yeats, and Percy Shelley, Widener draws different strains of thoughts together into an acerbic series of diatribes underscoring his anarchist ideology. While I agree with much of his political agenda, I’m not wholly in accord with all facets of his political orientation, and this will likely be the case with many listeners. But ultimately, that’s not really the point. While Widener’s beliefs might seem extreme to some (and between the lyrical inclination towards violent revolution and the liner notes that detail the best way to turn the CD into a knife and a bomb, it’s pretty much guaranteed that somebody’s going to think he’s too extreme), it’s good to hear an album, especially a metal album on a fairly high-profile label, that is willing to take a stance at all. Too many heavy bands get caught up in testosterone escapism or woe-is-me angst to fully consider the means by which their music could help empower people to deal with the world around them.
And this is ultimately one of the prime virtues of Liberteer’s debut – it doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but it approaches struggle and discontent with a sense of hope, and with the idea that attempts to improve the world’s miseries may take many forms. We may take to the streets or blow up dams, we may write books or record orchestrated grindcore albums. But the important thing is to maintain an open engagement with the world at large and the political machinations that drive it, for better or worse. Because while we may not take an interest in these matters, as the old saying goes, they will certainly take an interest in us.
