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Khanate: Clean hands go foul

28/08/09 || Khlysty

Ever since I learned about its existence, I’ve been waiting for this record like a junky waiting for the man, 26 dollars in my hand. I mean, when I learned that Khanate split, back 2006, I was heartbroken; in my mind there’s no other band that embodied all –and I mean, like, ALL- the aspects of metal: the rage, the existential terror, the uncontrolled power, the ugliness, the delusions of artistic merit (not that there’s no artistic merit in metal, but sometimes shit gets outta hand, if you know what I mean…), the impossibility of symbiosis (I mean, James Plotkin described the band as “consisting of a flake with multiple personalities, an egomaniacal control freak, an out-of-control attention whore, and a complete bastard with a volatile temper. It’s amazing that we lasted as long as we did” in a Village Voice interview), but, most of all, a striving towards a peaking goal, even if it killed the band.

Anyway, “Clean Hands Go Foul” is here now, and while I won’t do a post-mortem on Khanate (no, I WON’T DO IT, YOU FUCKS!!!), I won’t idolize either their last work, their swan song. See, I know that this record is the result of Plotkin’s manipulation on working versions of songs –probably under development for a record that could, but now won’t be. Well, lemme tell you out front that it fucking shows: this is the first time in my whole fucking life that I’m listening to a Khanate record and I don’t go apeshit, ready to fuck anyone looks me the wrong way; instead, I fucking ENJOY it from time to time, but, mainly I am left with a feeling of something unfinished. Mind you, not half-baked, nor put together haphazardly, but something that’s missing something.

Of course, Dubin, once again, gives a harrowing vocal performance, probably one more nuanced and scary and terrifying than anything he’s done in that past. His inhuman screaming throughout the record is so fucking expressionistic and immaculate in its desperation that sometimes I feel like giving this record a 10 just for him and his hair-raising performance. But, then, the fucking music comes and the 10 withers away. Why? You fucking ask why? I’ll tell you why. Because the music lacks the incredible roar of the past, suddenly sounding like fucking textural and/or tonal “experiments”. And I fucking don’t want “experiments” from fucking Khanate. Shit, they were, from their inception, a fucking “experiment”, so why rub it in my face?

And, you know what the worst part is? The worst part is that the four songs consisting “Clean Hands Go Foul” are good songs. If they were recorded by a lesser band, everyone would be sucking their dicks for their “unwavering experimentation towards the uttermost extremities of what doom metal can be” or some such shit. To boot, “Wings From Spine” is as edgy as a slow song can get, without going into Diamanda Gálas territory. “In That Corner” adds fragmented percussive mayhem into a fractal riff that could’ve been –should’ve been- a dip into some unspeakable paranoia. “Clean My Heart” sounds like a distorted, psychotic Tibetan chant, all deep sounds and furtive percussion, while the 33-minutes-long “Every God Damn Thing” is an exercise in ambient horror that can be –under the proper circumstances- bone-marrow-chilling.

So, why my anger? Why my dissatisfaction? Well, because, as I said before, the unholy dynamics that made Khanate a beast all of its own are seriously lacking in here. Instead, what one gets are tunes that are, ehm, interesting, even great to listen to, but without the killer-in-every-corner, death-in-every-turn intensity that was the band’s stock of trade. To me, everything here sounds tamed, controlled, organized. Probably Plotkin was restrained within this framework, given the nature of the material he had to work with. But this doesn’t make up for the lack of the real horror that Khanate’s music had been trademarked with. So, the bottom line is that 99% of the extreme bands would just kill to make such a record. But, for Khanate’s unfuckwithable oeuvre, “Clean Hands Go Foul” is just an acceptable addition…

Information
Released: 2009
Label: Hydra Head
Website: www.ideologic.org AND www.plotkinworks.com
Band
Alan Dubin: vocals
James Plotkin: bass, synth
Tim Wyskida: drums
Stephen O’Malley: guitars

Tracklist
01. Wings from Spine
02. In that corner
03. Clean my heart
04. Every God damn thing

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