The first iteration of this album had only six tracks, but, on the "deluxe" edition released later, three new tracks were added, all of them reflections of one another and the second track on the original album ; different elements appear in different places at different speeds behind different curtains of effects. For me, this makes the re-release of Antlers less impressive than the original, but there's plenty of stuff that more than makes up for that fact.
"The Gimp (Sometimes)" is just as eerie as a song by Coil with this title should be. In fact, this might be what a gimp hears inside his box: diseased, wavering band organ over a greasy, sodden warbling noise. The incongruous bass is a touch jazzy. Great vocal performance from Balance. Before your attention drifts away, some awesome, scary plinking shit comes in. It's not played, but, rather, being forced out of whatever instrument that is; maybe a toy piano. It sounds as if it's being abused by an angry child or a monkey. Then the vocals come back in with some scary effects on them, making this yet another pants-shitting opener to yet another Coil album.
Excelsior!
Thocking bass, mellow keys, great, infected programming and a bit of clacking in the back left comprise "Sex With Sun Ra (Part One - Saturnalia)". Balance sounds like a drugged and malicious David Bowie recounting a late night bar crawl which ended up with him getting taken advantage of (maybe? The drugged quality of Balance's voice makes me think date rape, but, you know Balance...) by Sun Ra*. After a while ("Sun Ra 1" is almost ten minutes long), this track gets old; you get the point and you want to move on, but there's still four minutes left. The oddest thing about this is that it makes me think of the beginning of Ghostbusters 2 when Bill Murray is hosting World of the Psychic and interviewing that chick who thinks she was drugged and picked up by an alien whose ship looked like a room at the Paramus Holiday Inn.
Is that weird?
Next, we have "The Wraiths and Strays of Paris", what might be my favorite track on here. Echoing marimbas and piano juxtaposed with some distinctive frayed sounds provide a beautiful canvas on which the synthesizers and violins are used to paint an exquisite and sad masterpiece. This sounds a bit like some of the stems from Nine Inch Nails' "The Day The World Went Away" and sections of "A Warm Place"; the chord progression here is just gorgeous. Occasionally, Balance will sing, sounding a bit like Stephin Merritt or Julian Cope. Suddenly, everything speeds up as the beat comes in with some distortion, and Balance begins to whoop and holler, yelling, "Shoot!" again and again. The metamorphosis from the wake to the post-wake celebration is exciting and revitalizes the whole track. The song is about nine minutes long, but I could have done with a few minutes more...maybe taken from "Sex With Sun Ra"...
The fourth track, "All The Pretty Little Horses", is a traditional lullaby about sleeping babies, lambs and pretty, little horses and, guess what, when Balance sings about sleeping babies, lambs and pretty, little horses, it's fucking creepy. The only real accompaniment is a beautiful and haunting melody played on the marimba, until it's joined by a terrible, dissonant screech which works great for juxtaposition as it actually causes you to focus more on the gentle, lonely tones of the marimba. Once you get past the eeriness of Balance singing this, it becomes strangely beautiful...but I still wouldn't play it for my children.
So, sometimes I'll look at a song title before I listen to the song, and sometimes I won't/don/t. I find both methods have their own effect on my perception of the track I'm listening to. In this case, I did not refer to the tracklisting beforehand and was therefore confused and then pleased to realize that this was "Teenage Lightning (10th Birthday Version)"**. This excellent recreation begins with looped and stuttering voices cheering over looped and stuttering beats. The harshness of these is mitigated by yet another act of juxtaposition; the soft, drawn out notes played on what might be an organ go perfectly with the frantic chattering and cheering. After a moment or two of this, the slate is wiped clean and some of the excellent marimba found scattered across the album returns with some squishy noises and some reverbed guitar, all very well arranged. Once the piano comes in, I begin to figure it out and then, finally, once the bass line drops, I remember that they had redone "Teenage Lightning" at one point, and that this must be that point.
It was, overall, a delightful surprise.
The title track, "Black Antlers (Where's Your Child?)" (originally done by acid house artist, Bam Bam) is menacing as fuck. It starts out sounding like a John Carpenter theme and gets nothing but more disturbing once the pixelated fan screaming begins.*** Like much of the album, this also sounds very...zappy; as if there is a loose, sparking connection that is absolutely a hazard unless someone fixes it...and soon. This track is actively pursuing you, looking to do you harm. It becomes even more Carpenter-y as it develops. Where's my child?
This track killed it.
And ate it.
"Sex With Sun Ra (Part 2 - Sigillaricia)" seems to be the other side of the story from part one, from the perspective of Sun Ra himself, although both songs would work much better, both on their own and in the context of the album if they were, in fact, about the Egyptian deity. This is the other side of the tale; not only is the speaker not drugged, but the music is bouncier, glitchier and faster (it could even be the exact same from "Sun Ra 1", just twice as fast). At least it's only five minutes and not ten.
Next is "Departed", a reflection of the title track. Much like "Black Antlers", this is full of menace as well, but it's far more repetitive, more present. This killer is more focused and inexorable. And he's running after you. There's also more of that dilated fan singing. When the key changes, the blade sharpens. This track is, literally, trying to stab you to death.
The final track, "Things We Never Had", sounds like a lot of other music on the album, namely the two "Sex With Sun Ra's", "Black Antlers" and "Departed". There's more to it, though. This is also menacing, dangerous. There's a strong sense of predator and prey, of being hunted by something both organic and metallic. The moaning and binary rhythm really gets under your skin. There's not a lot here for an song that's nearly twelve minutes, but there is enough to keep the listener interested, especially towards the end when the higher sounds come in; once that happens, I can hear a lot of Coil's influence on the Nine Inch Nails Downward Spiral remixes. After that point though, there is a very long fade out, which, I found, diminished the ending for me.
Most everything on Black Antlers feels as if it's being electrocuted for our entertainment. And some of the tracks want to murder us for it.
The repeating musical themes appear to be spooky marimbas, singing into a fan and that pervasive zappy, buzzing sound I'd mentioned earlier. This is a really great album with very strong and disturbing themes. I got bored a bit during "Sun Ra 1" and during the really long lead up to "Gimp", but that's it.
* The jazz musician, apparently, not the Egyptian deity, although I can picture most of this album drifting through the tunnels underneath the pyramids.
** Updated/reworked/rerecorded version of "Teenage Lightning 1" and "Teenage Lightning 2" from Coil's Astral Disaster.
*** Remember talking into those oscillating fans as children? Okay, well, picture Balance moanhowling into one and you kind of have an idea what this sounds like.
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