A review of Coil's "Horse Rotorvator"

First things first: Horse Rotorvator. The album is called Horse Rotorvator.

And we all have to deal with that fact.

So, continuing with my self-inflicted masochistic quest to force my ears all the way through Coil's illusive discography, this week I have been chewing on their second full length album...Horse Rotorvator, which was released in 1987.

The first track from this work is something I have been familiar with for years; it's called "The Anal Staircase" and it is fucking ridiculous.

"And the angels kiss/Our souls in bliss/Measure the extent of a dizzying descent/Down the Anal staircase/Put just one foot on the staircase/And the next step you're down here on this face/Down the Anal staircase"

Is it a warning? An invitation? What are the stairs made of? So many questions that I do not want answered. The music is hilariously over-the-top, with swooping strings (taken from Stravinsky's "Rites of Spring"), a thudding drum that could be an actual timpani and (of course) the sound of children laughing.
There's also a lot of industrial stuff that sounds a whole lot like something from Nine Inch Nails' debut album which came out two years later. Hearing this, it's hard to believe that, about ten years later, Coil will make the nightmare that is A Thousand Lights In A Darkened Room, but, hey, evolution, man, right?
Next up is a somewhat annoyingly twangy and bouncy track called "Slur" which sounds like something from one of the less accessible shorts on Liquid Television. There's some interesting stuff floating around on this one.
Things begin to get a bit more intense and less silly with "Ostia (The Death of Pasolini)", which has some surprisingly beautiful violin in it, as well as that ancient, ritualistic feel that can be quite unsettling when listened to in the right circumstances; not terrifying, just evocative. The lyrics refer to Samson and his battle with the lion and also driving one's car off the cliffs of Dover. That name "Ostia" speaks of a city made of bone, and I love the images it conjures.
After a strange little thing called "Herald", there is some straight up industrial shit with "Penetralia"*. This one also has a lot of Nine Inch Nails in it, but with some really nice Middle Eastern horns as well. Everything is going great until the song kind of disappears and gets real creepy before it rebuilds itself with even more industrial shit. YEAH!!!! Good stuff.
After this, with "Ravenous", we're taken to an Arab speakeasy...where they kill and eat people...and where there is a tear in reality...through which one can see lights...
Then, the screaming, open-mic fuckrant that is "Circles of Mania". This features John Balance screaming, laughing, discussing "long, hot, wet tongues licking and sucking and licking and sucking and sucking and (muddled licking/sucking/lip smacking noises)" as well as "fucking the holes in the ground" and then the sound of John Balance either pretending to fuck holes in the ground or the sound of John Balance actually fucking holes in the ground...and then laughing about it. This might be a difficult and obscure pull, but on this track, Balance has the quality of the performance artist's (Vulva, played expertly by David Walliams) sidekick from the episode of Spaced entitled "Art". Much like Staircase, this is way too ridiculous to be creepy and I find myself laughing right along with Balance, although whether it's because I find it amusing or because I have lost my fucking mind, I'm not 100% on; someone show me a hole in the ground and maybe we'll find out together... Whatever the case, the cheesy horns on this are awesome and remind me of the cheesy horns on the first Manson album, specifically in "My Monkey".
The next track, "Blood From The Air", could be a demo from The Downward Spiral. It's Nine Inch Nails without the accessibility. You know how listening to The Beatles makes a lot of pop less impressive and original? Well, this is sort of the same thing with Coil and NIN. It's like NIN took some/a lot of what Coil did and added melody, song structure, hooks, etc., then subtracted the insanity, the ranting and the abundance of songs lasting more than ten minutes and then got lauded as innovators in the field because of it. Hm.
Next up, a Leonard Cohen cover.

Then, "The Golden Section", which features what sounds like an entry from some holy and unwritten encyclopedia on Azrael, the Angel of Death, and his various manifestations to the dying; in the background, an angelic anthem, echoing around some great pantheon.

Finally, "The First Five Minutes After Death"; the album that began with a dramatic and swooping romp about an anal staircase ends with a ritual. Aside from sounding reminiscent of something from Nine Inch Nails' Ghosts I-IV, this also sounds a lot more like the Coil to which I'm afraid to listen in the dark, a very strong and solemn ending.

Something very interesting occurred to me while listening to Rotorvator: of all the bands that Reznor usually cites along with Coil as his influences (Front 242, Ministry, Skinny Puppy and the like), Coil is really the only one I've enjoyed. I find all the others a bit flat and lacking in that special sonic something that Nine Inch Nails brought to the genre of industrial. I think it's the unique and sometimes frightening sound that Coil has, that sense of menace and impending doom inherent in their music that Reznor was able to harness and transpose and combine with the ragged, buzzsaw guitars and cold, chittering drum machines of these other industrial acts that caused Nine Inch Nails to stand out so far from the rest of the genre.

Anyway, while not all great or memorable, Horse Rotorvator has been quite a journey, and I look forward to taking another step, not on the Anal Staircase, but rather, towards my goal, next week.

Thanks for stopping by.

Please, please, wipe your feet.

* Much like "Ostia", a very evocative name for a place I'd prefer never to visit.