Back in the winter of ’06 a piece of music crawled under my skin and has remained there ever since. It was on the Mary Anne Hobbs-hosted Breezeblock: a weekly late-night slot on Radio 1 where she blended avant-garde electronics with fresh cuts of grime and early dubstep. Around twelve minutes into the episode Hobbs introduced the Multipara Remix of ‘Removed (Vacuous Movement)’, by No Movement No Sound No Memories, as “proper white-knuckle stuff” and she was not wrong. It’s an undeniably unsettling blend of slammed doors, rippling chains, panicked hyperventilation and drums that sound like someone in the throes of a cardiac arrest. It set me off on a path of discovery, finding shadows of that heinous claustrophobia lurking in the initial waves of black metal, in Khanate’s paranoia, the vindictiveness of Throbbing Gristle, the scrap yards of noise and power electronics, and in Raime’s dark pools. And now Eros have slithered into that pit.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise bearing in mind the historical calibre the trio are packing: My Disco’s Liam Andrews is no stranger to upsetting metallic objects and unleashing ominous atmospherics, Karl O’Connor has caved in dancefloors singularly as Regis and as one half of belligerent dub techno outfit British Murder Boys, and Boris Wilsdorf is the producer and engineer responsible for sculpting ear-battering works by Einstürzende Neubauten and Caspar Brötzmann Massaker.
Your Truth Is A Lie is basement music. It crackles and creaks with metal clangs and unanswered doors buzzing obnoxiously. ‘Let Love Decide’ throws in mouth-wet splats, and digital spills atop brutal thumps as O’Connor intones the Jhonn Balance-esque phrase “I was betrayed by agents of beauty”. This goes straight into ‘Healing Waters’ ventricle-spasming pace, complete with guitar shrieks and a touch of Underworld in the vocal delivery. With its practically anthemic call of “This is the sound, this is the place, rise up, rise up”, it’s the most straightforward ‘song’ on the album.
A couple of pieces have been repurposed from their 2022 EP A Southern Code, including the chiming bells and wailing double reed zurna on ‘Crawling Man’, as well as the titular track which features a beat like a boxer bouncing on their toes, sinews flexing, raring to pounce. Despite mining an earlier release, the album’s threatening atmosphere is actually crafted from a raft of surprising sound sources. Sonar pulses drift through tickled bongos and Anni Hogan’s piano on ‘Cut From The Soul’, Rosa Anschutz’s sprechgesang is fittingly delivered in German over ping-ponged percussion and speculative guitar drone, and there’s further use of the zurna as it peals shrilly alongside brash pistons beating incessantly.
The dank cellar this appears to take place within offers little of the erotic seduction associated with the group’s name. It’s more suggestive of rattled chains, cracked bullwhips, and creaking leather… Hold on. I think I’ve talked myself round. Either way, knuckles are being put through their paces by the time this peters out.
