Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Revenge is a dish that is best served evolved. The long game is a skill that few in the 21st Century want to seem to embrace or master, everything is about the immediate, the now, and whilst that in itself is laudable, whilst it is understandable that all who seek fulfilment and their voice to be heard strike whilst the iron is scorching, to truly feel as though their ire and desires are best catered to, the long game, the sense of brooding, the development of the plan in which to gain vengeance is one that is finer tuned, one that has a chance of succeeding rather than crashing out as the evidence points to you alone.
To evolve is to survive and flourish, and in the best sense of revenge, it tastes sweet, it is the very reason for waking each morning and feel the warmth of reality tingle the cheek bones and leave you with a sense of love for all you wish to see avenged for the ills bestowed upon them and the world.
It is the calming nature of such release that we must find in other ways to express our displeasure; violence is not the answer, but in art we find the setting for squaring our jaws up to the world, and once they have taken their best shot, placing them into submission with well thought out responses, with undisguised illumination of their shortcomings, and the wit to create something beautiful which terrifies them.
Such is Revenge, and whilst the momentum of such retribution is arguably far from the mind of The Anix, inspired payback and tight fitting celebrations of music are all the rage, and as packed moments of urging unrequited agency to step forth and reveal the passion in the fierce hardcore stampede of music, especially in tracks such as the opener My Eyes, Quicksand, Don’t Let The Outside Win, Crimson, Want U Like I Do, and Erase The Outside World, the world of the engaging brutalism, the sense of heralded dystopia become accepted, championed, channelled through the talent of a performer with insight into the cross contamination of human emotion and the fear of the machine within.
An album that leaves the listener feeling the heat of expression, of the just response to a world that is growing colder in its attitude to anyone who dare fight back against an unjust system; revenge is after all not just for those who wrong us once, but for every time the system tries to knock us down.
The Anix’s Revenge is available to purchase from FiXT.
Ian D. Hall