This is not the plug-your-ears Prurient you've come to know and possibly love. In the world of 21st-century harsh noise, Dominick Fernow's one-man recordings have been among the harshest, the most physical, the least compromising. Earlier albums, like 2006's hellishly screeching Pleasure Ground, were overwhelming floods of feedback and heavy psychic ugliness. Like the earliest industrial music, Prurient's records were more than sonically off-putting. They felt pained, beyond urgent, the product of some need to loose inner turmoil into the world, coming as much from Fernow's body as his machines.
Bermuda Ground isn't just pleasant by contrast with Prurient's old unholy racket. It's often actively enjoyable, albeit in a decidedly creepy way, rooted as much in familiar retro-rock moves as formless face-eating noise. Perhaps it's down to Fernow's time playing in the decidedly more accessible and anthemic synth-pop/post-punk act Cold Cave, but Bermuda Drain is full of distortion-free keyboard, perverse disco beats, moments of beauty, even hooks. Especially for those who feel they get enough aural abuse just walking down city streets, it's the first Prurient record they might throw on for reasons other than testing their pain threshold.
Which isn't to say it's accessible, necessarily. It may owe more to the creeping dread of old synthesized horror flick scores than the splatterpunk intensity of exploitation gorefests, but Bermuda Drain still opens with the kind of scream and fried-circuit blast designed to clear the room of everyone but the hardcore. When he's not roaring like a metal frontman let loose on a rave tune ("A Meal Can Be Made"), Fernow's whispering in a way that feels intimate in a decidedly uncomfortable and icky way. And song titles like "Let's Make a Slave" should let you know that Fernow-the-songwriter isn't exactly penning happy-go-lucky new wave here.
Fernow's shrieking and quiet-loner monologues also give Bermuda Drain a real sicko intensity that's been lacking from the recent glut of "dark" early-1980s synth stuff. He has the sound down, somewhere between Factory Records sturm-und-drag and grotty old VHS-tape slasher soundtracks, but you could never accuse Bermuda Drain of being a slick or faceless attempt at mere nostalgia. Like the earlier Prurient records, it comes from a dark and personal place, less an exercise than an explusion. Fernow wants to shake you up, unnerve you, make you understand just how fragile "beautiful" music is, rather than simply make sure he gets the synth tones period-perfect.
