One thing I've always admired about Relapse is their willingness to go back and put out records that are really fascinating but also kind of fucked up. Such is the case with Rwake's Xenoglossalgia: The Last Stage of Awareness. This is the kind of album that bends your mind and, at times, sounds more like a bunch of dental tools malfunctioning than anything else. Yet through it all, it is glorious, because once you penetrate the layers of noise, it's just about possible to find some sort of true meaning.
The raw diversity on this record is really interesting, and now that it has been remastered it's a lot easier to really sink your teeth into what the band has been trying to o. The epic droning and occasionally symphonic madness of these songs has a way of winding its way into your heart and holding you a captive to the oppressive sound that this band is so well known for. When they come forth to rip you apart limb from limb, it's hard not to go willingly, a slave to the frightening sounds coming out of your speakers. Rwake show us the sublime darkness of the world around us and force us to look at it and consider our own frightening mortality.
At the end of the day, Xenoglossalgia: The Last Stage of Awareness will always stand proud as a classic, but with this new incarnation, it becomes so much more appealing. Suddenly you can really get a sense of what Rwake where going for, and it becomes all the more impressive to see how far ahead of their time they were. Rwake crafted something truly magical with this record, and as I fee l it wind down, my own soul starts to crumble and crash, falling back into the current, borne to strange new earths.
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