ALBUM REVIEW: THE AGE OF AQUARIUS BY PERTURBATOR

Reviewed by Cecilia Pattison-Levi

The album ‘Age Of Aquarius’ by French musician Perturbator (aka James Kent) is a cinematic industrial synthwave fused with heavy rock, nostalgic 1980s synthpop sounds and brooding dark electronica. It’s a record full of beauty and drama, with its moody melodic tones and lovely vocals that match the lyrics about our current times of war and dystopian control.

The album opens with the aptly titled song, and first single ‘Apocalypse Now’. It’s a song about the systematic destruction we cause to our own kind: “There is blood on the ground / We've got bullets for everyone”. Perturbator has collaborated with Kristoffer Rygg of Ulver and delivered a powerful and excellent song with intense, pulsing synths that concentrates on the lyrical themes of humanity’s ability to self-destruct through selfishness. It delivers the tone and the central concept of ‘Age Of Aquarius’ vantage point of conflict and misanthropy. 

The following two songs are the instrumental ‘Lunacy’ and ‘Venus’ (featuring Author & Punisher) which is haunting and beautiful if slightly disturbing in “its prayer from the heart” that isn’t going anywhere and sounds more like a gothic existential scream. The pulsing synths and jangly guitar riffs lead into the lovely ‘The Glass Staircase’ with its sense of euphoria before the track gets dark.

Then, ‘Hangover Square’ named after the 1941 novel by Patrick Hamilton that was written in the shadow of the approaching Second World War, tells the story of a man at battle with himself and the world around him which again is reflected in the central themes of this album. The song ‘Art of War’ is a thumping synth track delivering its core message through a descending scale of music about the global rise of fascism. Perturbator is asking the listener to have a very careful think about the road to war that we are travelling. The orchestral synth track ‘12th House’ gives the listener that dark listening space.

This aesthetic in music is not new as musicians are often the “canaries in the coal mines” and if you listen to music from the 1960s you can hear these themes in the music of the anti-Vietnam war movement, in the 1980s around the Cold War and in the 1990s and 2000s around the First and Second Gulf Wars during the Iraqi conflicts. 

The following set of songs: ‘Lady Moon’ (featuring Greta Link) with its ethereal vocals that float over sharp stabbing synths as the song descends into darkness of fantasy, denial and sadness and then ‘The Swimming Pool’ that is a tranquil, instrumental piano ballad that offers some respite. And, it was needed as the listener heads into ‘Mors Ultima Ratio’ that is a menacing, high-intensity dark synth and drum track with a chilling electronic murmuring that could serve as the soundtrack to a final battle of the Gods.

The album closes with ‘Age Of Aquarius’ (featuring Alcest) with its atmospheric introduction of long synth keys delivered slowly and deliberately as the tension builds through the vocal sighs. Until, the song ends in light but heavy, the juxtaposition is so there, as Alcest screams into the void.

Perturbator’s ability to craft clear narratives with minimal lyrics and instrumental framing is impeccable. There seems to be a clear theme in ‘Age Of Aquarius’ about humanity’s slow yet inevitable descent into war through our own self-destructive behaviour. It’s a loop we can’t seem to get out of – the question being posed in the music is - how to break that situation? Perturbator showcases the problems in that “hell is other people” on that “western wall” in a beautiful yet dark album that seems to be backing hope: “the war to end all wars” indeed.