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 of high pitched electronic screams. It’s an incredibly intense start that continues save for one brief moment halfway through. 

“Say Nothing” starts off deceptively mellow, with a sparse electronic beat and gently strummed guitar and a soft lick on top. The voice comes back in at this point, singing over and over “say nothing, just work.” The lyrics change slowly as the strummed guitar quickly becomes noisier and noisier. By the mid point, we hear cacophonous and erratically strummed guitar as Eric begins screaming about how “fucking useless” it all is. It’s a cleverly approached idea in this way, representing that feeling of trying to keep it together as everything falls apart and becomes a horror show, with you the listener as the passive and helpless observer. The aural assault resumes with “Bear It,” a track with seemingly no vocals whatsoever, just a heavy weight of noise bearing down on you. Things calm down briefly as the final track, simply title a “Change” begins. Low grumbles of static and electronic noise start us out as the vocals come in slowly, indescribable at first but slowly becoming clearer as it instructs us to “change your hearts or die.” It’s a truly intense near hour of thrashing and wailing noise, but just such incredible piece of art representing the terrible state of things.