Mass Marriage - Secrets
(New Forces)

Secrets is the newest release for the Vancouver artist Melissa Paget, who has performed a blend of high-concept power electronics / death industrial under the name Mass Marriage since 2011. Secrets is a 3-track cassette released by the Ithaca, NY based New Forces label, and I'm definitely bummed I didn't find out about this project sooner. The titular opening track starts off blazingly hot and menacing with a loop that swells and decays, eventually building to a more steady, low end rumble. Already the anxiety and wretched decay of classic groups like Genocide Organ and Atrax Morgue is touched on amazingly well. The small bit of Melissa's heavily affected vocals that appear in the middle and end, give the listener just a little cryptic peak into the world Mass Marriage is creating. The whole piece eventually builds into something downright suffocating, adding up the layers of incredibly heavy distortion until everything is swallowed. I was very impressed by the amount of palpable dread in these tracks. Particularly in side 2s opener, "Hand Me The Key", which has a seedy and voyeuristic narrative that is familiar within the power electronics genre, but stops short and leaves you a bit mystified. It's effectively creepy and the whole execution is wonderfully sickening. And the volume is massive! (VII)
Check out a track here.