Turkish Post-Punk duo RAIN TO RUST entered the scene in 2019 with critically acclaimed debut album ‘Flowers Of Doubt’. 2020 saw the release of its companion piece, ‘Stillborn Flowers’. Both albums showcased well-crafted Gothic Rock filled with chorus-laden, orchestrated guitars, atmospheric keyboards and deeply melancholic lyrics. After a period of lockdowns, isolation and death, Rain To Rust return with a new album–their darkest and most punishing yet. ‘Martyrdom: Eight Exercises’ takes Rain To Rust back to the intellectual and experimental roots of Post-Punk with a much harsher and murkier sound. It is not meant to be a pleasant listen; on the contrary, its aim is to take the listener for a mental stroll in rat infested, crumbling squats where young people shoot up and die.
Each song is related and dedicated to an artist who died by suicide: Adrian Borland (The Sound), Richey James Edwards (Manic Street Preachers), Ian Curtis (Joy Division), Per Yngve Ohlin (Mayhem), Yukio Mishima, Peter Tyrrell, Osamu Dazai, Robert Ervin Howard – artists who have been providing inspiration to the band for long years.
Inspired by Adrian Borland’s death by jumping in front of a train, the lead single, ‘Tonight I Will Meet My Friends Who Died Untimely ’is a melancholic yet driving tune with a beat that is supposed to give the feeling of a railway ride. In second effort, ‘Cutting Moments’ the band tries to connect to Richey Edwards’ psyche as he jumped down Severn Bridge (it is still unclear whether he did it or not–he is officially declared deadbutabody was never found).
‘The Killing Room’, a Darkwave requiem, sees Ian Curtis speaking to his demons as he is at his wit’s end. ‘Sleep And Death Are Brothers’ connects to Per Yngve Ohlin’s obsession with death and his constant desire to leave his physical self. ‘The Patriot’, taking its title from Yukio Mishima’s story “Patriotism”, is about thinking of self-sacrifice as the purest form of beauty. The samples used in the song show the two conflicting sides of Mishima: his interest in hara-kiri as an extension of samurai code versus his interest in hara-kiri as something erotic.
‘Letterfrack Penal Colony’, the harshest track on the album, relates to Irish author Peter Tyrrell’s traumatic childhood memories spent in a Christian Brothers Industrial School in Letterfrack, Ireland. ‘Penal Colony’ is a homage to Franz Kafka’s short story, in which the convict is punished by getting tied up to a machine that carves his conviction onto his body in a loop, going deeper and deeper as it works. This is reflected in the music through a repetitive drum and bass pattern.
‘The Big Dive’ is based on Osamu Dazai’s suicide (along with his girlfriend Tomie) by jumping into the flooded Tamagawa Canal. His death was already foreshadowed by his novel ‘No Longer Human’ which was posthumously published (and was the inspiration for a song on the first Rain To Rust album, ‘Flowers Of Doubt’).‘The Big Dive’ turns the story into an innocent love song, inspired equally by Suicide and Angelo Badalamenti.
‘And The Ravens Left The Tower (Howard’s Dream)’is the album’s most experimental track. Based around a piano motive that eventually disintegrates into layers of reverb as the song goes along, it sees H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard’s friend and colleague, having a dream where Howard reads him poems and tells him that he will join him in death very soon. The song then disappears in sounds of hyperventilation and coals burning in a furnace.
‘Martyrdom: Eight Exercises’ is out now for your pleasure across various music platforms. Why not have a listen below…
Must Listens: Tonight I Will Meet My Friends Who Died Untimely, Sleep And Death Are Brothers, The Big Dive
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