Patrick Hasson is the kind of person that makes you feel like you’re wasting your life. A one-man musical behemoth, Hasson currently operates five (that I know of) different solo projects, and all of them are fucking amazing. Without pigeonholing them too much, because each of these endeavours is surprisingly diverse: Black Chalice is Hasson’s vessel for exploring the possibilities of death and doom metal, Avulse and Auspicium mine the respectively raw, punky and epic, atmospheric poles of black metal, Field Of Spears traverses the more subdued darkness of neofolk, and Wholy Failure, the hardest to categorise, exists somewhere in the post-punk/electronic realm.
Wholy Failure’s latest, Abortion Eucharist, is absolutely not what you would expect from Hasson, although if you’ve been paying attention that should be exactly what you have come to expect from him. That being said, Wholy Failure is undoubtedly the weirdest thing Hasson has done to date, even when considered apart from the context of his other endeavours. Abortion Eucharist is definitely hard to pin down, full of electronic beats, synthesizers, electric piano, organ, acoustic guitar, heavily effected vocals, and without a doubt the weirdest and most unexpected song Patrick Hasson has ever released, “Smile”, a three and a half minute pop song. I’m not shitting you.
While Hasson has frequently shown off his clean vocals in his past projects, this is an entirely different beast. “Smile” is melodic, catchy and poppy with chiming lead guitar and a shoegaze-y swirl of effected strumming that calls to mind a sunnier Kevin Shields.
Elsewhere, Hasson’s vocals are affectedly unaffected, distant and monotonous like the best lackadaisical post-punk drawlers, fed through a thousand effects pedals so that they drift and echo like a ghost in the synthesizer.
Changing it up again, on “Hymn For Our Skin”, Hasson manages a perfect Nick Cave impression over jazzy electric piano flourishes and a trip-hop beat, coming off like a twisted preacher sermonizing in an acid nightmare vision of a Southern church. It’s insane enough even before buzzing synth and crushing drums swarm the proceedings and he starts screaming ‘I’m so deep inside you’ over and over again.
“Twilit” will present a moment of familiarity to fans of Hasson’s post-rock leanings in Black Chalice and Auspicium, with melancholic clean electric guitar creating a beautifully somber atmosphere you’d be forgiven for expecting to lead into some crushing doom metal, before Hasson’s mournful croon soars in over an unexpected but perfectly fitting washed out electronic beat.
With Wholy Failure, Patrick Hasson has created some of his best and most exciting music, high praise for someone responsible for such a sonically varied and high quality catalogue. Abortion Eucharist is weird, creative, surprising, and above all moving. Hasson is an absolute master at crafting emotional atmospheres, no matter what context he’s operating in or instrument he’s using, and there are some truly beautiful and heartbreaking moments spread throughout this album’s meager runtime.
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