Adverse Effect Review

Thanks to Richo of Adverse Effect Magazine for this review of Pilgrim: New World Homestead…

The very fact that the credits on this second album by Scottish duo Human Greed includes a “doffed cap” to David Tibet and Steven Severin should well pave a way to the island they inhabit, even if not especially directly.

Pilgrim…, consisting of nine tracks in total, might bear similarities to some of Severin’s solo work or C93 in the sense that it burrows steadily into man’s deeper internal and external struggles but, sonically, it falls nearer some of NWW’s murkier musings or, closer still, Andrew Liles’ mindtrippin’.

Rich, tormented and often foreboding textures form an absorbing palette from which looped passages spring, voices dreamily and briefly make their presence felt, and the sounds of distant sawmills battle with minimalist hums. Added to such powerful and effective ingredients arrives a sense of innocence being tarnished, too. ‘Wife and Child’ perfectly captures this notion, beginning with more dream conversation which breaks down into a series of the kinda black hole swirls more commonly found on more recent work by the now sadly defunct Coil.

Sure, the reference points may be in place, but Human Greed possess both that all too rare depth barely found in such work and a genuine air of purpose-fuelled freedom. In a perfect world, more people would see Human Greed and the very best of their contemporaries for what they truly are: modern painters of our souls’ greatest and weakest points. And, in this sense, maybe it’s fair to surmise that this is where 21st Century ‘soul’ music really is? (RJ)

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