I Lie Here Buried With My Rings And My Dresses - Backxwash: Review
Backxwash
is an experimental rap artist who broke out last year with her God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It album which saw her fusing hip hop with industrial and metal music and would eventually go on to win the Polaris Prize. Backxwash is capitalizing quickly on the records success with a sequel that projected a noisier and even more chaotic direction for her music.
Review By Lav:
Backxwash was introduced to me last year as a trans artist who had connections to fellow 2020 breakout act Black Dresses, and in my pursuit of consuming all the great trans art I could I engaged with and enjoyed her last project quite a bit. While it would be reductive to try and collectivize the artistic accomplishments of trans creators in recent years, we can highlight the ethos of the work. When we think of trans peoples contributions to music these days we probably go to hyperpop or niche electronica genres, painting futuristic escapism in digital bangers with experimental flare, and its a sound I still can't get enough of. But for the blissful eruption of dancefloor hits, Backxwash represents a very different kind of expression for the trans community, one far more gritty, dejected and in a since, realistic. This made her last record a real thematic highlight for me even though I had some little issues with some of the songwriting and arrangement of the tracklist, but taken as a proof of concept it shows that she was capable of making something truly incredible. I Like Here Buried With My Rings And My Dresses is that album. It's both musically brilliant, unique and versatile, while also being one of the most painful and riveting portrayals of the trans experience I've ever heard.
Breaking this record down as some kind of concept album about being trans wouldn't be giving it the credit it deserves for its versatile thematic approach, as across the album Backxwash is tackling a myriad of extremely personal challenges. The first taste we got of the album came on the title track which features a harrowing screamed hook courtesy of Ada Rook from Black Dresses. I can't decide what goes harder on the song Ada's hook, Backxwash's explosive verses or the guitars jamming away in the instrumental. The whole song has a thick fuzz over it which makes these individual moments sound absolutely tortured when they emerge from the dense mix. The songs second verse in particular is a tour de force moment with desolate and revolutionary political lyricism, the track is just brilliant.
Ada Rook also contributes to Songs Of Sinners though I think only on the instrumental side of things. The song has these really striking metallic percussion hits and dives heavily into religious imagery on the lyrical front. Backxwash ponders over her desire to be saved and wonders if she is even in need of saving all while conjuring up some Lovecraft like horrors of old world religion. The hook comes from Sad13 and while it is very very reserved in its performance it hovers over the track in a very unique way. Nothing else on the record sounds quite like it and it serves as a sort of relief from the darkness of it all, at least save for the guitar wailing away behind it. My favorite feature on the entire album comes on Terror Packets. The track kicks off with a distant wailing beat but one of the cleaner ones here and that's for good reason because featured rapper CENSORED Dialogue delivers an incredible featured verse to kick off the song. The lyricism here dives deeply into issues of the world failing to accept trans people and projected its own identity crisis onto the, performed with a lethal execution level despite the more measured vocal by comparison. Backxwash's shouted verse dominates the second half of the song and she also has quite a bit to say. Everything about this song is excellent and I liked it more and more every time I revisited it.
Wail of The Banshee is an uncompromising opening track with crashing drums and screamed vocals in the background of the insane beat, Backxwash sounds gruff and intense in her vocal performance over the track but it's really the darkness of the subject matter that is so encapsulating. Her dark lyrics about mental health and substance abuse are unafraid to touch on incredibly personal battles. Uncompromising really is the best word for it all. In Thy Holy Name is the first of a few tracks on the record that makes heavy use of religious themes. The song is profoundly violent and Backxwash seems to have both an optimistic and pessimistic take on spirituality. The hook of the song features an implication that she almost wants to be saved in the wake of some kind of afterlife, yet all over the song she displays how much religion has been responsible for ruthless oppression so the point almost seems in vein. While the message is a bit abstract I see that as a credit to the songs ability to take such a difficult issue with lyrical intensity, only outdone by the intensity of the performance and hellish, biblically sized instrumental.
The record has an amazing closing sequence starting with Nine Hells. The track has a stark kick drum instrumental that is heavily Nine Inch Nails inspired. It also has one of the records best and more straightforward hooks which goes over almost unbelievably smooth given how noisy the record has been up to this point. Substance abuse is once again the theme of the song and detail is stunning. The song makes me extremely worried for Backxwash's health both mentally and physically but to that same end I have to admit that the storytelling is intoxicating in all its depravity. The real person behind these bleak lyrics make them all the more fascinating in a way I haven't heard done so well since Danny Brown's Atrocity Exhibition. Burn To Ashes is the most up-tempo song on the entire record and doesn't waste a second going absolutely fucking insane right out of the gate. The verses are great and intense but the hook is even better with infectious group vocals and an impassioned vocal performance from Backxwash. It makes direct reference to the demons she battles and how some of those battles are losing ones. The instrumental is one again noisy but expansive and her fast flows and hard-hitting bars somehow manage to feel just as grand despite the incredibly darkness of their lyrics. The songs close sees Backxwash in the distance flaming out one final time in an absolutely dramatic fashion to end the entire record off.
I don't have many complaints about the record, and even when they do come up they are often minor ones. 666 In Luxaxa isn't one of the shorter songs here but despite its length it is basically just one long verse with intro and outro chanting. During her verse Backxwash is touching n cultural destruction and appropriation while once again heavily focusing on the failures of religion. It moves into more contemporary politics calling out Trudeau by name and making reference to his famous blackface incident. This is one of the fiercest verses on the record and even though the chanting has an obvious relevance to the subject matter of the song I can't help but wish something more had been done with it. Compositionally the song is very simple and I wish it did more to highlight some of its really great sonic elements.
Blood In The Water is one of two tracks that come in at under two minutes and that's a real shame because this one was produced by the Clipping boys and I was really excited about it. As it turns out the brevity of it all makes it one of the less grand statements on the record. While Backxwash's ability to bounce between rapped verses and screamed hooks in such a tight composition is undoubtedly impressive this isn't one of the most intense of exciting songs here on account of its length. The record also has an intro track Purpose Of Pain but honestly I don't really get that much out of it. While I understand it serves as set up for a lot of the records themes it starts to drag on really quickly and I think it could have served the same purpose with about a third of the runtime, and I'm still not sure I would like it all that much then.
I Lie Here Buried With My Rings And My Dresses is incredible. Despite some minor slipups as it relates to tracklisting and composition on the shorter tracks, there is so much personality, life, and harrowing, tragic darkness weaved into every moment of the record. The pain that is being put on display lyrically is shatteringly raw and the dense, dark instrumental palette serves those themes perfectly. The fusion of genres on this record is strikingly unique in the grander scale of music and I'm not sure I've ever heard anything that offers the same level of execution, personal lyricism, and explosive delivery that the record does. Truly when it all comes together I am worried about Backxwash and I wish her the best at overcoming the dark subject matter that plagues her all over the album, while simultaneously admitting that this project as its presented to me not, is spectacular. 9/10
Album Cover Review By Tyler Judson:
