Band:	Have A Nice Life
Album:	Deathconsciousness
Style:	Industrial, Post-punk, Shoegaze
Release date:	January 24, 2008
A review by:	jupitreas

Disc I [The Plow That Broke The Plains]
01. A Quick One Before The Eternal Worm Devours Connecticut
02. Bloodhail
03. The Big Gloom
04. Hunter
05. Telefony
06. Who Would Leave Their Son Out In The Sun?
07. There Is No Food

Disc II [The Future]
01. Waiting For Black Metal Records To Come In The Mail
02. Holy Fucking Shit: 40,000
03. The Future
04. Deep, Deep
05. I Don't Love
06. Earthmover

Even though it slightly overstays its welcome and is not nearly as original as the blogosphere would like to have you believe, Deathconsciousness by Have A Nice Life is easily the most important album of the year so far and should be heard by everyone. After reportedly five years in the making, this lo-fi masterpiece conjures a mood so harrowing and overbearingly sombre that it makes funeral doom records sound like Barney's theme song.

Have A Nice Life sound like a mixture between the Comsat Angels' Sleep No More and early Coil, but recorded in the lo-fi aesthetics familiar to ambient black metal fans. While not an entirely new approach (Lycia and Kill The Thrill have been wading similarly murky waters for years), this particular combination of amorphously textured riffs, inhuman rhythms and detached vocals can be extremely powerful. Therefore, although not stylistically ground breaking, Have A Nice Life don't actually sound like a rip off. This is not to say that Deathconsciousness doesn't have faults. Being a double album with a clear concept (described in the 75 page booklet attached to the release), it certainly meanders a lot. Not all directions are successful, even if they do appear on the record for legitimate conceptual reasons. I do also wish they used that song structure from the Comsats' "Dark Parade" less often than they do.

Ultimately, the above faults can and should be quickly ignored simply because of the immense emotional weight that emanates from the speakers during a song like "Bloodhail". Besides the occasional barrage of ambient noise that the listener needs to wade through, Deathconsciousness is filled to the brim with simply fantastic riffs, memorable musical motives and innovative vocals. Believe me, the guitar tones you will hear in songs like "Hunter", "Earthmover" and "Holy Fucking Shit: 40,000" are guaranteed to move you. The ubiquitously raw production also adds the sort of fragility to them that works so well in black metal, transforming simple guitar progressions into icy manifestations of atmosphere.

This record will appeal to open minded black metal fans, particularly depressed post-punkers and those searching for the next big thing in the 'metalgaze' movement, although I can honestly recommend it to anyone reading this review.