Bataille - The Wolves Amongst The Flower

Label: Classic Cult Grotesque
Year: 2015

On the backs of the Pretty Please post, here's another Atlanta band to throw dirt in your eye and key your car. Formerly called Georges Bataille Battle Cry, but thankfully now, the simpler Bataille, and brute powerhouse of scathing menace.
Almost exactly one half post punk and one half noise rock (and yes, I am aware of the fine grain of hair splitting that sentence evokes...but, it's what you gotta do, if this is what you're doing), but all black everything. There's a distance between the band and the listener that seems purposeful, as a way to keep you (assuming you're playing the part of "Listener" in this production) at arms length from the genesis of this din, just on the edge of a very bleak performance. Shadowy, and loudly echoing off of every surface, the songs serve to disorient as much as entertain.
And there's an entire philosophy behind all if this that I am not inclined to understand (or maybe care?), in that the band is based on the writings of Georges Bataille, and the band speaks by quoting philosophers and intellectuals that I have never heard of and am too dense to attempt to grasp. It's tough to penetrate the artifice of artistic intellectualism, and frankly, rarely worth the effort, but in the case of this band there is a visceral release that cuts through the manifesto-speak and leaves you breathing in deep gasps of acrid smoke.
Plus, you're probably way smarter than I am (it would be hard not to be), so maybe this "anti punk" band's grainy squall will connect with you on both the physical (that part goes without saying) and mental (read a book or two) level. It's well worth investigating.

DL