Released
1988
Label
Nettwerk/Capitol
Reviewed by
Michael C. Lund
Visit
Last Edit/Update
23 March, 1998
Skinny Puppy
VIVISECT VI
Track Listing
1. Dogshit
2. VX Gas Attack
3. Harsh Stone White
4. Human Disease (S.K.U.M.M.)
5. Who's Laughing Now?
6. Testure
7. State Aid
8. Hospital Waste
9. Fritter (Stella's Home)
10. Yes He Ran
11. Punk In Park Zoo's
12. The Second Opinion
13. Funguss
VIVISect VI
represents the perfection of the sound Skinny Puppy had developed since
the addition of Dwayne Goettel to the band on Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse.
While retaining the rich musical textures and topical content of Mind and Cleanse
Fold And Manipulate, the album is generally more accessible both lyrically and
musically than either of the two preceding releases.
As the title suggests,
VIVISect VI is concerned with the daily attrocities that take place in animal
testing laboratories -- the song "Testure" being a particularly indignant
indictment of the practice of animal vivisection. However, numerous other issues are
dissected by Skinny Puppy: drug addiction, nerve-gas warfare and
environmental pollution being only some of the bitter pills the band makes the listener
swallow. Musically, the kaleidoscopic tabloid quality of the lyrics is complemented by
great amounts of media samples, and an almost perpetually present wash of shortwave radio
tunings.
"Dogshit" (or
"Censor" as the song was retitled for single release) emerges out of a sea of
throbbing radio static at the beginning of VIVISect VI. Ogre performs a
virtual vocal scatology of modern society, and the music is fittingly chaotic and
distorted. "VX Gas Attack" is tailored like a radio broadcast from the 'wars' in
the Middle East. Actual media samples from the region are interweaved with Ogre's
vocals, which are performed in a manner reminiscent of on location news broadcast
reporters.
From the global issues of
"VX Gas Attack" and "Dogshit," the album plunges into more convoluted
and personal territory with the tragically beautiful "Harsh Stone White." This
track has a hallucinatory atmosphere with slow distorted guitars, spurts of steamhammer
percussions and melancholy synth themes, supporting vocals that are hazy and world-weary
in character.
On "Human Disease
(S.K.U.M.M.)" Ogre juxtaposes lines of lyrics describing the cancerous
effects of man on the environment with lines on cancer, the disease itself. In the end
there is no difference, only the idea of cancer as a lethal malady. The sound of this
extended piece is extremely chaotic and mutates constantly.
Relying heavily on samples
from the horror movie Evil Dead 2, "Who's Laughing Now" again talks about
drug abuse. The song is one of the smoothest and most 'danceable' on the album with strong
percussional elements and synth melodics. "Who's Laughing Now" in fact was
'inoffensive' enough that it appeared on the soundtrack of the Rob Lowe movie -- Bad
Influence.
"Testure" (the
second single released from VIVISect VI) likewise has a very smooth and accessible
sound. Perhaps because of the urgency of this song's topic, Ogre's voice is left
relatively unaltered. It is a visually powerful and gruesome account of vivisection that
concludes with the words: "5 year genocide 1945 suicide vivisect vi." Nowhere
else in Skinny Puppy's output is a statement made more bluntly: the
treatment of laboratory animals is demonic, and it is equivalent to the inhumanities that
took place in the Nazi death camps -- the suicide of man through 'his' inhumanity towards
his others begins in 'his' treatment of animals.
The following track
"State Aid" is a nightmare noise-wash seemingly focussed on the alleged CIA
experiments that lead to the aids epidemic. Each word of the song is screamed individually
against the escallating carpet of background noise. "State Aid" leads straight
into "Hospital Waste," which again features a very busy soundpicture revolving
around the chemial pollution of nature. "Fritter (Stella's Home)" ends this
tour-de-force album; a sonic movie that takes its title and numerous samples from Roman
Polanski's The Tenant. The piece ends with the unsettling voice of Jack
Nicholson (from The Shining) uttering "...it's alright, he saw it on the
television." Skinny Puppy thus borrows the idea that anything
experienced in the media -- and by extension Puppy's own music -- is
harmless entertainment.
Added to the CD release of VIVISect
VI are four extra tracks which appeared on the Censor and Testure
singles. For further discussion of thes tracks see the individual reviews of these
releases.
Copyright Last Sigh
