Label: Blackmage
Released: 21st October 2020
Rating: ★★★
A sonic experience dripping with abrasion, Ghostemane’s eighth album in five years is another peek into the darkness that apparently lurks inside the rapper.
Stringing together the assault of his rap/metal hybrid with atmosphere and interludes to build a horror-show, ‘Anti-Icon’ is, depending on which way you want to look at it, an antidote to a world intent on trying to be positive, or a nihilistic soundtrack to a world eating itself alive.
Metallic sounds hit brash, while the coarseness of Ghostemane lurches out of the onslaught, only for the whole room to be swallowed by fog and everything disappears. The tide of Anti-Icon is where its intentions become clear. Consistently disconnecting – abrupt breaks, searing sounds, or even doom-laden piano – allow the gaps to fill with whatever you think is lurking around the corner.
An unrelenting scape, even in its final moments where ‘Calamity’ is just noise with the foreboding ring of a solemnly struck string, before the more natural emotional haunt of closing ‘Falling Down’.
Not something you can just chuck on, ‘Anti-Icon’ is an album that feels like the love child of Marilyn Manson and Code Orange. Hidden amongst the white noise comes truth, and just how much of it you can take is put to the test, but if your mind wanders the same crooked halls, then you’ve found your soundtrack.
