Ministry of Apathy - American Despair
Released: October 23 American Despair is an album that takes the term cognitive dissonance into the territory of open cognitive conflict. It is a near perfect representation of the feelings that many people in the United States and its proxies have felt - despair, hopelessness, conflict, dissonance, bewilderment, and a pervasive crushing perception that things have devolved into pure barbarism. Sonically, it is brutal. It gives momentary reprieves while assaulting you with harsh bursts of noise, but even with the rests the voice of the Ministry of Apathy (Eric Zwierznyski) is there to remind you of the horrors. After the introduction, “I Wake Up” begins its prose. “I wake up, there is work that needs to be done… are you seeing this?” Descriptions of children in Gaza massacred in the ongoing genocide, descriptions of mothers being shot and people disappeared off the street. Then, with the words of “let the pain wash over you,” we are subjected to crushing and persistent noise with muted...
