2012 includes a snazzy split-screen live video performance of "Cold Water", a track from last year's Lost Light, along with its 12 tracks. It's a raw, unrestrained performance, and it's in stark contrast with much of 2012. A couple of notes of ascending sliding guitar start "Los Angeles" with a promise of catharsis that's deliberately held back. When Arrington de Dionyso spits out phonetically funky lines like "from the ten-oh-one to the one-ten, to the ten to the two to the one," then wails "traffic is at a standstill," it's evocative of the record at large, like bumper-to-pumper highway traffic where every driver's had one drink one too many.
Holding something back reveals how strong this rhythm section is (now including Jamie Peterson of Deerhoof side project the Curtains) and proves once again the band are skilled and careful craftsman, not the faceless wailing of a second-rate Beefheart or Screamin' Jay Hawkins. 2012 lacks the accessibility of "Cold Water" or the rest of Lost Light, but it's another assertion of the band's particular talents. Opener "Chemical Factory" is a voyeuristic peek at a jam in progress, fading in on a stiff groove that's started before the listener hears it. The role of the guitar is de-emphasized, and the rhythm section becomes the rock around which other instruments drop in and out, like "Chemical Factory"'s unhinged accordion performance. De Dionyso mutters mundane settings like a filthy invective, "on the stove, on the table, in the office, in the lavatory."
2012's concept about the impending apocalypse (which I'm told is predicted by the Mayan Long count calendar) fits: These performances are frayed, claustrophobic, and waiting for release. While other instruments are ubiquitous, like the band's growling saxophone or the mouth harp in "Tundra", the core of three can fill space on their own, like de Dionyso using the back of his throat for added percussion on "Wolves and Wolverines". "Burial Mound" might be the most threatening atmosphere Old Time Relijun has ever laid down, just from the relentless double bass and elemental force from the echoed slapping of the snares. The story from Lost Light (specifically the king) make a reappearance on that song and on "The King of Lost Light (A Reprise)", one of the album's most memorable tracks that builds complete chaos from the smallest elements: a one-note bassline, de Dionyso's double-panned vocal histrionics, and two simple guitar lines-- one vaguely eastern but atonal, one erratic two-note funk. "The Blood and the Milk" closes the record with an organ drone and a saxophone blurting so low it sounds like digeridoo until halfway though; one last shift from unpredictable noise to musical revelation.
