PLAGUE BRINGER - Life Songs in a Land of Death
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FOCUSED REGRESSION

Drawn in by what you promised me that day i took the oath. I fell prey to your diamond lies and ever present smile. I recall awkward days of doubting every thing I did. All I had I gave to your limp crusade and liar's pride. For one moment I felt secure. Blind trust false hope leads to dark days. Scolded then scalded by your burning accusations. The gates to your shrine are hot to the touch and quick to close. I never wanted to stay, I just wanted the fair exchange not your stepfordian creed. Enlightenment at the cost of my feathers is not a price that I am willing to pay. For one moment I felt secure. I salute your isolation as long as I'm allowed to freely breathe as the sentient beast I am. For one moment i felt secure. Branded a dissident, I brandish individuality. I slice a smile of rebellion wide through your ranks.
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THE SEVERED BREATH

We will not soon mend the wound. We stood shocked as we heard the squall. All for one and none for the other. Fate and choice. One lost a mother, a brother lost us. We will not soon mend the wound. We're not the same since you left with our hearts and our minds will not stop racing with thoughts of your voice and all the words that you said. (for Ginny Solone & Malachi Ritscher)
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SUFFERING IN REVERSE

There's no reasoning with the thin-skinned masochist. Your vanishing act may prove an escape, so why dig your teeth so deep and play the gun-toting catalyst to the quick return of my dormant insecurities? Try to fly a needle of a scream to your invisible ears. Let your tongue taste my salt. Tether my pain to your fault. Under the heaviest skies, the stars pushing me down, this celestial anvil I wear like a crown. This stands as a paragon of my fallible intuition. Left so self-conscious like those I deemed so confident. Left me so frail like those I deemed so strong before you. All the longing and all the disgust and all the while head held high. Clockwise scowl from the giver of grins buckles his knees like an explosion, turned inside out suffering in reverse.
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A SENTIENT BEING

Closer than I wanted, chiseling porcelain doubt. What remains is clear and shiny, and broken like a day without words. Obsolete, your actions find no reward and it leaves you hollow, prone to the probing of those who misconstrue your failure for fault. Your cave is dim and the glorious sun only slivers your walls occasionally. I saw your eyes sliced by light, your pieces sewn back together like a reminder of the bombast. A bottle full of words for the smashing of heads. A floor peppered with shards, you've become the cautious walker. Flying fragile paper arms. The coward's cry becomes your mantra. Overcome by fright, by the fear of the light of the flight. Dismayed friends cloaked in shadow. Dismayed friends cloaked in shame. Oblivious to the torture and oblivious to the hate just outside the cave, they breathe it in like the neighbors. I've become a venom-less snake so sick of slithering. Oblivious to the torture and hate outside the cave, they breathe it in like the neighbors of industry. Tending to their disgusting gardens, they feast ignorant on polluted fruit. I cope, but my pills grow large all the while my throat constricts.
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DO NO HARM

Under the guise of a fallow, seeding all the while, the silent germination thrives on all the filth you sow. So subcutaneous, like a shadow cast in shade. The only way to see it clearly is to cause the one to fade. Cast aside, he stands reluctant, spoiled food regretting the swallow. Knees cracked, shattered elbows, lips and limbs left loveless and cold. One more lost moment begets echoes of pain. No limbs left to cross, no comforting warmth, merely a nest of hair frozen in knives of ice. Like a broken hand, it hurts to hold on. This was no accident. The nakedness can often obscure the truth and this was brimming intent. It's bloodlust but its lust at least, undeniable and warm and I take it like a champion, a bravery born too late.
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SHADOWS OF BLACK HABIT

I've got my secrets, got my addictions, my thin glass veil of dirty predilections. I'm trying to sleep with the room on fire, seems my closet arsonist found the matches again. Live wake to slumber, you'll end up on your shell kicking the clouds from the sky. It will keep you far away, your dark cancer. The hidden flaws of coping, your dead dancer. The hardened jaws of growing, slave to your master. The ardent maws and howling of your gnashing disaster. We will kill this old friend tonight. Flensing each other as the sun skins the sky. Tangle-touching skeletons in a night of no end. Shadow-fondling our mingled flesh as the severed habits ascend. It will keep you far away, your dark cancer. The hidden flaws of coping, your dead dancer. The hardened jaws of growing. The ardent maws and howling of your sprawling crawling gnashing disaster. We're caged in the shadows like profit tigers awaiting escape. Mirror-kissing yesterday's wound with self-reflected disgust, like ipecac kisses in a dream of brown shadows and broken teeth. My hat's off to this amputation. Here we stand, fleshless in the shadows of black habit.
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WIDE EYES TOWARDS THE SKY

Seek the truth, crush the doubt. Force fed lies, slit the throat. Bite the hand, gag my mouth. Burn my eyes, breathe the smoke. Bind my wrists, slap the face. Grit your teeth, bite the brick. This will soon be the end of the pain and of the guilt. Cold is the grasp, the dead breath of my friend. In this age of senseless faith, I propose an intervention. Bold and focused our arms will not fail with stentorian voices, if we hold the evidence to be true to ourselves as the crust and the rust belies the trust. Wide eyes towards the sky awaiting a sign of recognition for the cries and the trials of this reprehensible world. A toeless foot holds me off kilter, gagged clumsy and dumb. The longest hours spent staring at where you once stood. My eyes wide towards the sky, flesh beckoning stalking vultures, as my soul escapes its earthly restraints. I want to watch it all end, it will be beautiful. Pull me under or lift me up, but do it now. Set me free of these terrestrial shackles. I will stand here waiting, watching, living, naked, broken, with wide eyes towards the sky. Wait for night to come. Perform the sacred rite. Alter my consciousness so they might see the light. I've grown too accustomed to all the wrong things, the sight of the meek and the taste of my blood, the anger of men and their slickness, this land full of hate and so full of sickness. This will stand as an unanswered question, a beckoning riddle. This cloud shrouded sky lets the birds move in secret, a migration unnoticed as i do what i never thought possible and say again what i never meant. Daunted by your very breath, but enticed enough to lay at your feet. I write with heavy hands and noble intent, a fiery letter to the collector of complicated truths, who whittles us thin and naked. Falling on the eyes again, dumbfounded by fools and the rules of the gesture. The dance is decadent. A gestating apocalypse lies in wait. Of arrows slung far and shadows cast long, I'll fashion a fortress from the ignorant hordes. Waiting watching waiting watching living. Wait for night to fall. Write it out in blood. Light myself ablaze, so they might see the light. You made a bed of fire, tucked yourself into flame. Eyes that hurt to open will never close again. Your final breath might keep countless more alive. Your dying breath may prove to be your greatest fight. Finding solidarity in solitude and giving body to the dead voices with wide eyes towards the sky. (for Malachi Ritscher)

We are please to announce that an EXCLUSIVE Plague Bringer track will be available on the upcoming RELAPSE release DRUM MACHNE GUN II.

Here is an excerpt of what Jay Randall (of ANb) said about the compilation, (in the most current issue of Resound Magazine):

"DMGII is a real eclectic cross section of every next extreme in extreme music. Some of the more known artists on it are Genghis Tron, the Berzerker, Plague Bringer, Gigantic Brain, Otto Von Shirach, Delta 9, Drum Corps, Wadge, Nun Whore Commando 666 alongside other lesser-known artists like Bong Ra's Deathstorm, Migual/Pantalone's new project Patasserie, Sewage Sammich, Maruosa, Eustachian - all breaking mach 10 in speed and innovative."
 

More information coming soon!

[This blog will be updated frequently as a means to let those who care, know what we are up to]

We are playing the mighty DUDEFEST again this year... this is happening the weekend of June 20-22 in Indianapolis. If you are traveling from afar, then I highly recommend looking into Megabus. Go eat at Kuma's Corner, go to a show and buy the touring band's merch, take your shoes off and walk in the grass, support your independent record stores, and eat some damn fruit. Listen to Harvey Milk, listen to Torche, listen to Black Sabbath.

"Alright, today marks a transition in my curriculum for Extreme Metal 101, that most patronizing of all courses that consists mostly of drinking Newcastle and shouting at my unwitting pupils, "You’ve never heard of KATATONIA!?!?"

See, whenever I’m trying to explain a particular metal sub-genre to a buddy of mine (in an attempt to wean him off of Taproot), there are certain epitomizing artists that I force upon him. For example, when asked about post-metal, I spin him my copy of Red Sparrowes’ "Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun"; for stoner rock, Blue Cheer or Electric Wizard is usually the order of the day, and the power metal nod typically goes to Children of Bodom.

When we get to the subject of grindcore, my go-to has heretofore been the ultra-violent and beautifully unappealing "Prowler in the Yard." Not only does it feature flawless technical execution and superbly conceived depravity, but you can’t get a much more grind-ish name than "Pig Destroyer." Tell me I’m wrong.

Well, I’ve updated that particular lesson plan to include Plague Bringer’s sophomore release, "Life Songs in a Land of Death." They should get a big friggin’ smiley face stamped on their blistered little throats and fingers just for being able to usurp PD’s sheer amount of blunt force trauma with only half (or two-thirds, depending on the lineup) the personnel, but the talents of this Chicago duo, spearheaded by guitarist/programmer Greg Ratajczak and supplemented by vocalist Josh Rosenthal, go far beyond mere decibel level and distortion.

The album’s centerpiece, "A Sentient Being," starts off with a crash of dissonant chords that gets about as fuzzy as possible without descending into pure white noise. From there, we get a bit of sludgy slow-down, some groove riffs, and a smattering of digital acoustics straight out of the Finnish scene. This, by the way, is all about halfway into the song, which has, by the end, deteriorated into a blackened vortex of blackness, sorrow, and despair. I think I’m in love.

You simply don’t see anything coming. Rosenthal’s vocals on the Portal-esque "Do No Harm" venture into the realm of a digitized Satan, and just when you think you’ve gotten a little metalgaze reprieve a few minutes into "Wide Eyes Towards the Sky," the faux-ambient rug is yanked right out from under you — though the funeral doom swell in the background should have been sufficient warning.

The whole of "Life Songs" is like a death-grind equivalent to "Janie’s Got a Gun" — brimming with hooks, savagery, and even (beneath the filth and industrial murk) a touch of redemption. Total auditory immersion is essential; there’ll be a quiz later, and if you fail, you get locked in a room for three days with Puddle of Mudd piping in. Don’t try me."

-JOSH RUFFIN
Metro Spirit, Issue 19.28, 02/06/2008 - 02/12/2008

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PLAGUE BRINGER DEFINES GOOD DEATH METAL

The term "melodic death metal" was arguably the most ironic descriptor in the music lexicon, at least until Plague Bringer came along. After listening to the Chicago duo’s second album, Life Songs in a Land of Death, only one term comes to mind: melodic grindcore. Make no mistake, these guys aren’t going to show up on "TRL" anytime soon. But Plague Bringer has managed to take the raw aggression of Pig Destroyer and early Napalm Death and infuse it with enough hooks and grooves to make a grindcore album that could be palatable for fans of Opeth or Meshuggah. Vocalist Josh Rosenthal’s heavily processed screaming meshes seamlessly with guitarist/drum programmer Greg Ratajczak’s thrashy riffing and mechanized, metallic beats. The use of a drum machine gives the album a cold, industrial feel, not unlike early Godflesh or Psalm 69-era Ministry. There are moments of pure chaos, such as the ferocious "Focused Regression" and "Do No Harm," that should appease grindcore purists. But it’s the more epic songs, like "A Sentient Being" or the eight-plus minute closer "Wide Eyes Towards The Sky" with their tempo shifts and (believe it or not) piano interludes, that could earn Plague Bringer the title of "the thinking man’s grindcore band."

-MIKE R. MEYER
College Times, 02/14/2008

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PLAGUE BRINGER: Life Songs In A Land Of Death

If the recent big trend in heavy music was crossover US black metal, the next one might be a return to the punk-inspired death-grind of Brutal Truth, Napalm Death, et al. Plague Bringer, along with Disfear, is leading the charge, tossing in the relentless throttle of an industrial drum machine for extra ear-splitting measure.

Life Songs is the heady—in musical execution and lyrical aspirations—sophomore effort from Chicago duo Greg Ratajczak (guitar/drum machine) and Josh Rosenthal (vocals), the former of whom somewhat bizarrely honed his engineering chops on Modest Mouse’s The Moon And Antarctica. Apart from near-silent opening track "Digital Weathering" (a tricky calm before the storm, reminiscent of how Metallica’s bludgeoning "Dyers Eve" duped listeners with moments of short-lived tranquility 20 years ago), Life’s eight tracks are all grindcore dynamics, feedback-driven death-metal vocals (think A.C. vocalist Seth Putnam if he fronted a less ridiculous band) and Ratajcazk’s battering-ram drum-programming, which leans toward the Adrenaline Junkies’ hardcore techno-thrash in its precise assault.

If eight tracks seems like something of a terse affair—particularly when they fidget between seven-minute monsters and under-two-minute micro-blasts—the album’s relative brevity is its smartest asset, no surprise from a studio wiz like Ratajczak. Truth be told, there’s only so much pummeling a person can endure, but more to the point, with such a limited framework of instruments, Life would have expired long before the final moments were it even two or three tracks longer. But as a determinedly single-minded macro-EP of invigorating, real-deal metal, this is a modern headbanger classic.

-KENNY HERZOG
CMJ.com, 02/25/2008

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Mix the over-the-top sounds of Pig Destroyer, Brutal Truth, and Ministry in an industrial strength-sized blender, and you’d come up with Plague Bringer. Few bands on the scene during the early 21st century can match the intensity of Plague Bringer, and the proof can be heard throughout their 2008 release, Life Songs in a Land of Death. And while some of the songs sound like a gang of mad gorillas beating on a trash can pretty much from beginning to end ("The Severed Breath," "Do No Harm," etc.), there are other points where Plague Bringer goes the Tool route and throw in a surprise detour (such as on the otherwise breakneck "Focused Regression"). And then just when you think you may have the Plague Bringer formula all figured out, they throw in a track like "A Sentient Being," which burns along at a steady medium pace for over seven minutes. If you like your extreme metal both ugly and intense, you may soon find yourself putting Life Songs in a Land of Death into heavy rotation.

GREG PRATO
allmusic.com, 02/24/2008

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Plague Bringer
Life Songs in a Land of Death
HEWHOCORRUPTS, INC.
Grindcore’s Steely Dan

I’m man enough to admit it: When I witnessed Plague Bringer at Dudefest ’07, I wasn’t nearly as blown away as our customer service deity, Mark Evans, who was wandering around after their set mumbling something to the effect of, "Anyone catch the license plate of that truck?" I hadn’t heard Plague Bringer before then and didn’t have any expectations, so I can’t say I was disappointed, but I was soured on the sense of visceral paucity that accompanies a tear-your-nuts-off grind band using a drum machine in the live arena. But my living room isn’t the live arena and there’s something to Life Songs in a Land of Death that guitarist/programmer Greg Ratajczak and vocalist Josh Rosenthal weren’t able to get across on stage.

This duo plays a meticulous mix of grindcore and industrial metal, with nuances of powerviolence, thrash and a surprising amount of "gas-pumper" metal; surprising because any band that sounds like the netherworld remnants of a Pig Destroyer, Godflesh, Brutal Truth and Anaal Nathrakh jammola should be playing mailbox baseball with dudes in Pantera shirts, not embracing the sound as Ratajczak’s guitar does on "Do No Harm" and "Focused Regression," which will make you wish you had a sixth finger to air guitar with. Plague Bringer make it all work. Even with the bald obviousness of their mechanical drum and bass-less sound, the intensity is like the sun’s rays burning off a morning fog, allowing you to see the grime and decay of the shitty city you call home. The lumbering thrash of "Shadows of a Black Habit" is pure fist-banging mania, just listening to the rapid-fire programmed beats of "The Severed Breath" will give IT dudes cerebral hemorrhages (and real drummers tendonitis), and "A Sentient Being" is an exploding, cinematic, Godflesh stomp with layers of cello, noise samples and splashes of wah pedal. And while I’m not really looking forward to seeing them live anytime soon, I’m perfectly content to thrash around my house, making pseudo-evil, teeth-baring grimaces in salutation of this album’s undiluted power.

—Kevin Stewart-Panko
Decibel Magazine, April 2008//No. 042

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Album Review: Plague Bringer - Life Songs in a Land of Death

I first wrote about my appreciation of Plague Bringer in my Upcoming Metal Albums to Get Excited About post. That was before I had heard their newest release Life Songs in a Land of Death, which had yet to come out. It’s taken me about a month to grasp this album. There’s a density to the mix that almost excludes the listener. Or maybe it’s more clear to say that it suffocates the listener if they try to get "inside" the music? Either way, Life Songs in a Land of Death is very thick and I love it. I don’t claim to know very much about production, but I think part of the suffocative (what a word!) quality comes from the fact that the main sonic elements reside close to each other in the low-to-midrange of the frequency spectrum. The layered, distorted guitars, the harsh, distorted vocals and the drum machine blend together to create this disorienting sound that I have yet to hear any other metal band approach. It’s too coherent to sound like stereotypical, black metal production, but it’s also markedly different from modern hardcore/metal/metalcore production (read: not shitty and lifeless). There’s a lot of rhythmic locking going on too, where those three main elements will simultaneously bust into a concerted rhythm, like at 6:50 in "Wide Eyes Toward the Sky" (linked below). When used sparingly or in different combinations, it can be a pretty devastating tool.

The added instrumentation used occasionally throughout the album is interesting as well. It blends well and doesn’t call unnecessary attention to itself, which is to say that it sounds in service to the songwriting as opposed to the opposite. There are some cello parts and one amazing part in "A Sentient Being" with hammered dulcimer that sounds like it’s from some kind of minimalist-metal symphony. There’s also a wah-guitar part in the song that’s ridiculously cool. It’s only for a brief section in the middle, but it just floats suspended over the open-strummed guitar riff so well. And in "The Severed Breath" there’s literally just one chord that uses a wah-guitar. How great is that?

There’s a warning in the album’s liner notes that reads: "CAUTION! NOT FOR USE ON MONO DEVICES." I can’t say that I’ve ever even owned a stereo with a mono speaker, but I understand what they’re saying. The album’s mix must be important to Plague Bringer, because it’s just so detailed and interesting. Not to get too heavily into cliché, but it excels as both a "headphone album" and one to blast through your speakers at unhealthy volumes. The tracks are intricately layered, with the most awesome background elements only revealing themselves after multiple close-listens. Things like subconscious anticipations of parts of the song that are coming up (I may actually be imagining this, but I hear elements of the previously mentioned wah-guitar part buried way deep in the mix early in the song). Other things like trying to discern between the layered guitar parts and listening for the genuinely unsettling sound design elements in some songs (that might also be adding to the suffocation I mentioned earlier). There’s a cool, very quiet guitar part in "Do No Harm" that I just started hearing, where it sounds like he’s just noodling up in the guitar’s range.

The album art design is excellent. There’s one picture on the back of the foldout slipcase of a nude woman sitting, photographed from the back and blowing a long trail of smoke across the three foldout panels. Very austere and just plain cool (there are faces in the smoke!). You can preview each song on Amazon.com and the DRM-free MP3 copy of the album is only $7.92 on there. It’s very much a cohesive album, so I’d recommend getting all the tracks together. And for another take on it, the blog I’m The Most Important Fucking Person in the World wrote an excellent review of Life Songs in a Land of Death. They hit on a lot of stuff I probably didn’t get across too well, like how fucking heavy it is. Oh and Scott Hull of Pig Destroyer mastered it, so... that’s something too.
Excerpt of "Wide Eyes Toward the Sky" (starts at 6:50, ends at 7:26)

-Joseph Ohegyi
Geek Down, March 3, 2008

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PLAGUE BRINGER "Life Songs In A Land Of Death" (Hewhocorrupts, Inc.)
Review by Alex Harisiadis

A band name like PLAGUE BRINGER more or less tells you what sort of experience you’re in for - ominous, frightening, potentially devastating. And with Life Songs In A Land Of Death, that’s exactly what you’re getting. PLAGUE BRINGER are a two man and one machine team offering up a robotic, industrial/grind-flecked assault of metal that is worthy of Skynet. Luckily, no one portion of the music overwhelms the other and never allows the band to be dragged down into a mire of blast beats and cacophony throughout the course of Life Songs.... Instead, the riffs are actually memorable and moments of clarity arise in the form of Scandinavian-styled solos or alternate instrumention and serve to cleanse the aural palate. The guys in PLAGUE BRINGER know how to construct an interesting song that employs various textures and moods, lending the band’s music a cinematic quality (the band DO list Hitchcock, David Lynch, the Coen Brothers, and Paul Thomas Anderson as influences). Unfortunately — and this could be the limitation of employing a drum machine — the songs on the album tend to sound the same after a while, which detracts from the entire experience. Yet, on the whole, Life Songs In A Land Of Death is a very cool album that indicates a ton of potential and serves as an excellent starting point for a great band.

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I recall in reviewing "As the Ghosts Collect the Corpses Rest", the debut album from Chicago’s PLAGUE BRINGER that Greg Ratajczak (guitars/drum programming), and Josh Rosenthal (vocals) were really onto something. The "Seventh Rule" EP offered an intriguing concoction of MINISTRY-esque industrial drivers and PIG DESTROYER grindcore insanity. It is also a case of an album where real drums aren’t missed and the drum machine adds that cold, mechanized feel. With "Life Songs in a Land of Death" PLAGUE BRINGER has come into its own, creating an album that is even better than its predecessor and improving the songwriting without losing any of the aggression. One might even say it is a more aggressive album on several levels.

The general appeal of the album (an EP really, but a long one) lies in its 1984-ish glow and machine-over-man dominance (both attributes that defined much of GODFLESH’s career). Specifically, for every lightning speed, industrialized grind explosion (which by itself is satisfying enough) there are clever breakdowns and an array of effects that work wonders. For example, the assaulting way that "Focused Regression" makes its impact would make Al Jourgensen proud. Then a sprawling, neoclassical guitar solo by William Taylor leaps out of the mix and brings a certain beauty to the beastliness of the track. In other words, the album sounds as though the band really thought about getting the most out of every track. Rosenthal’s distorted screams are the stuff of nightmares and one reason why the band attracts some PIG DESTROYER comparisons, yet he changes it up from time to time, whether injecting a growl or a spoken part into the mix. The same goes for the arrangements themselves; the aggression is always there and nothing ever occurs that softens the dangerously sharp edges, but the duo finds different ways of getting the message across outside of full-on blasting (though that occurs too). Additional splashes of color are found in the inclusion of cello by Alison Chesley on several racks and the Hammered Dulcimer of Thomas Schmidt.

Finally, the lyrics are also an album strongpoint; even if you’re not a "lyric person" you’ll want to at least peruse these. Rosenthal’s tales of a world gone wrong and personal crises are written with grit and contempt filtered through a kind of isolationist prose or the poetry of anomie. Yes indeed, PLAGUE BRINGER is a band that you can no longer ignore. Yet another act and album that helps define Chicago’s fertile extreme music underground.


- Scott Alisoglu
BLABBERMOUTH.NET


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Life Songs in a Land of Death
HeWhoCorrupts Inc.
OUR RATING - 4 /10

On their second full-length, Chicago-based duo Plague Bringer continue to ply a drum machine-fuelled death/grind/industrial amalgamation that’s far more compelling in theory than in execution. Although artists such as Agoraphobic Nosebleed and Xasthur have successfully managed to incorporate canned beats into the realm of extreme music, these artists should be seen as the exception rather than the rule, and unfortunately Life Songs in a Land of Death doesn’t do much to dispel the notion that this is the sort of thing best left to seasoned professionals.

Plague Bringers’s attack over the course of thirty-two minutes is a diverse one, ranging from the ambient intro "Digital Weathering" to the filthy ’n’ furious assaults of tracks like "Focused Regression" and "Do No Harm" to the slow-burning "A Sentient Being," but diversity doesn’t necessarily mean quality, or for that matter memorability. The album quickly slips past without having much of an impact upon the listener, due to a rather lackluster songwriting approach that makes it difficult to pick out many strengths within the band’s sound.

In fact, the album’s greatest weakness is that the songs themselves aren’t particularly engaging, mostly coming off like a less sophisticated Godflesh or Ministry with elements of death metal added in for good measure. The rudimentary programmed drumbeats leave much to be desired and the performances put in by the band’s non-computerized members aren’t a heck of a lot better. Guitarist Greg Ratajczak’s riffs are uninventive and repetitive to the point of redundancy and Josh Rosenthal’s distorted vocals have a tendency to dominate the mix in a manner that’s downright annoying.

In spite of a mastering job by Scott Hull, the recording sounds like it was done on a low-end Macintosh, effectively robbing the album of any hope of attaining the levels of suffocating mechanical heaviness bands like Red Harvest and Havoc Unit have long since mastered. For a band that relies on programming to supply its rhythmic backbone, Plague Bringer’s command of technology isn’t particularly impressive, especially when compared to the bands currently leading the genre.

Bottom Line: Unfortunately, Life Songs in a Land of Death sounds more like a glorified demo by a band struggling to find a live drummer than an official full-length release. In the future, Plague Bringer might consider filling out their sound with a few more human members and placing a little less misguided reliance on technology.

-Josh H.
Lambgoat.com

"Having worked with indie lover boys Modest Mouse as an engineer, Greg Ratajczak put some of the things he learnt on the table whilst setting up Plague Bringer with vocalist Josh Rosenthal. As a result, "As The Ghosts Collect, The Corpses Rest" is not your typical grindcore album. Mixing Pig Destroyer's cyber sensibilities with Godflesh's monolithic approach, its coldness and maniacal vokill duets are something worth keeping an eye on. [7]"

-Olivier "Zoltar"
Badin TERRORIZER Magazine No. 141

Attention bands/designers/comedians/filmmakers:

The marketing/exploitation engine that myspace can be, seems to be in full effect, therefore we have blocked bands from adding us as friends. This may be for selfish reasons but we don't want to be blindly befriended in an attempt to augment your friend total or become a cog in your marketing machine. So...if this applies to you and you want to be added to our friends because you are a fan, then be human and please send a message and we will read it and act accordingly. Our myspace is for our fans first. That is all.

- The Brothers Plague

PLAGUE BRINGER - As the Ghosts Collect, the Corpses Rest
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burn ward whore

Tongue of fire lick these wounds, soothe my flesh with your touch. Mouth of fire, suck the pain. Side by side in ecstasy. Rough like a dog's lick, the sick trick is still thick on my lips. Write out your life's wish and take it and spit it to the wind. Euphoria. You soothe in times of pain. You slather love. You confess you are my angel. You were only feasting on my pain banquet 'til it's gone. Numb and shaking. Welcome your touch late in the night. Finger these scabs. Euphoric release. The time has come to end this charade. The passion has died, I'll leave you alone. Then you move on to the next victim. Burn ward whore. Love me at my weakest, then you leave me to die.
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hope and slow murder

Birds wings black oil spill ink. Step in and out of the light stabbing my face with the sun. Stars are eyes poked out skies. Step in and out of the light stabbing my face with the sun. Standing in the flames of all your promises. Doves with broken beaks pinned fat between your teeth. No flight, razors dragged under skin. Lightless, shackled by hope with the slow murder of what I held so dear. Skinned knees kissed soft by acid lips. Acid hammer breaks me into cold reflections of what I always wanted. I held onto your lying hands 'til mine were fleshless and the bone turned to dust on your windowsill, thrashed by the breath of a cloud born promise that you'd be who you were before the hammer and all the razors. You're about to say it, about to mouth that knife of a word with a whisper that will drag it slow across my neck for too many turns round the sun. I've buried you in my head more times than I can remember. Covered you in the stale dust of regret and thrown you all limp and dusty down the stairs I struggled to carry us both up all those smile breaking nights. I nailed the door shut with a thousand better-off-without-you thoughts and wish-I-never-knew-you days. Still you found a way out to slowly murder me with your words of hope.
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no such nothing

I scream in my head to drown the whispering reminders of all that is wrong here like you sprinkling glitter on your social tumors. Maybe I'll go to sleep for another year and see if it smells the same when I awake from it. Three loveless, sexless trips around the fucking sun only coming close in the echo of a dead dream. I'm standing at the edge of the canyon, a sick tree waiting for the leaves to float on whispers that offer hope. There used to be some warning. A smile from you now is like a blur of fists and the thought of a kiss kills me over and over again. I'm murdered every night, my head likes to stab and slice. I awaken piece by piece, a morning pile of fantasies..The spotless parts of my mind scream out for you to etch yourself inside of me so I can have that, at least, to lay my wax paper depression over like a headstone and have something to look at and to run my fingers tips over when I am trapped in a plastic bag of a day in an underwater week.
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halo trauma

Leaveless and ashamed. Naked and curb swept. Stripped by your angry tongue. Bone cracks and laughter. Storm clouded vision. Color whore you stole my silver. Memories are mass confusion. Little boys should never be disillusioned limbless trees (this boy has planned his whole life to kill you). In this forced comfort, peeling the skin rolling through the dry dead leaves. Pacing the floor, knowing it won't go away. You're out there glowing and smooth skinned thinking that you won't be found. Dying birds and dogs ripped open. Trees falling, earth movers move earth. Mother Nature's frolicking afterbirth. Nothing dead can ever touch you. We should not be permitted this quiet privilege of breathing. Dead sky rains rocks head back my mouth agape. Sky shakes teeth break. Slapped hard and awkward to face what I've done. I never learn. Dark shadows eyes gouged, wander dead earth no one will come. I found this is how it is. Your skin is for the murdering. Your blood for the dying earth, so what is your dying wish. I'm so sick of all this talk about love. He loves you. I love you. I'll kill him, I'll kill you.
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the somnambulist

Push it all away so you don't have to feel it. Falling asleep at the wheel of your life. No one can shine brilliantly all the time. We're exhausted from trying to penetrate your altitude. Your armor is spectral and brittle like a dragonfly's wing. Secretly wishing it all away. Rubbing the lamp 'til it breaks into shards. Staring at a starless sky. We can't sew you up anymore. Who now is the guardian of your ghostly blank face dead time day? The days go by, a slow decay. You're out there walking with your wings on backwards, needles in place.
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splinters through a straw

I'm so sick of breathing in all of this like splinters through a straw. Trying to stop a train on my knees on a sandpaper street. Everyone is too lonely too sick too scared to care for fear of the noise. The smilers are all losing their hands like me. Give me my fucking hands back. I thought we could solve everything but fucking never solved anything. All the shit and all the noise we see, but fucking never solved anything. What you need is to hit bottom. Sky red black birds like flies in blood. Your heart looks so empty to me. Tongue splashing, eye lashing to keep it secret, but I can feel it in the breaths in between. I thought we could solve everything, wished away like cancer in your family. I thought we could solve everything, but this death-covered hope is deaf to the screaming.
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impaled faith

My dearest love, I see storm shadows roll over our field like a fog. Split logs awaiting the flame to help transcend the stagnant soil. Like the lost friend who brings the fight out and fills the room with screaming. This room, this cage, my hole-poked cardboard cell. Here I feel the cold fingers down my throat. Icicles of unborn ideas thrust deep in my chest and turned to water by your hands. There are so many ghosts here. There are so many ghosts. So, to answer your question, no I never feel alone. The scabbing walls are sewn shut with the stains of all those frozen moments shoved in a box and thrown in the fire. In this blue room the paint chips red. You're so far away, but you hammer-mouth never stops. Disguised as the strong-willed survivors, the facade falls away like a sick leaf, all yellow with disease and regret. My horses lay silent, emaciated, and still. And the ornament of us is shattered, scattered, and alive, dying in the fire. Your jasmine breath turned dead snake shower with one whispered word. I'm alive with squirming inadequacy, tangled and trapped in the wires of your calculated cerebral sodomy.

Malachi Ritscher, 1954-2006

Mission Statement (from Savage Sound) My actions should be self-explanatory, and since in our self-obsessed culture words seldom match the deed, writing a mission statement would seem questionable. So judge me by my actions. Maybe some will be scared enough to wake from their walking dream state - am I therefore a martyr or terrorist? I would prefer to be thought of as a 'spiritual warrior'. Our so-called leaders are the real terrorists in the world today, responsible for more deaths than Osama bin Laden.

I have had a wonderful life, both full and full of wonder. I have experienced love and the joy and heartache of raising a child. I have jumped out of an airplane, and escaped a burning building. I have spent the night in jail, and dropped acid during the sixties. I have been privileged to have met many supremely talented musicians and writers, most of whom were extremely generous and gracious. Even during the hard times, I felt charmed. Even the difficult lessons have been like blessed gifts. When I hear about our young men and women who are sent off to war in the name of God and Country, and who give up their lives for no rational cause at all, my heart is crushed. What has happened to my country? we have become worse than the imagined enemy - killing civilians and calling it 'collateral damage', torturing and trampling human rights inside and outside our own borders, violating our own Constitution whenever it seems convenient, lying and stealing right and left, more concerned with sports on television and ring-tones on cell-phones than the future of the world.... half the population is taking medication because they cannot face the daily stress of living in the richest nation in the world.

I too love God and Country, and feel called upon to serve. I can only hope my sacrifice is worth more than those brave lives thrown away when we attacked an Arab nation under the deception of 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'. Our interference completely destroyed that country, and destabilized the entire region. Everyone who pays taxes has blood on their hands.

I have had one previous opportunity to serve my country in a meaningful way - at 8:05 one morning in 2002 I passed Donald Rumsfeld on Delaware Avenue and I was acutely aware that slashing his throat would spare the lives of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people. I had a knife clenched in my hand, and there were no bodyguards visible; to my deep shame I hesitated, and the moment was past.

The violent turmoil initiated by the United States military invasion of Iraq will beget future centuries of slaughter, if the human race lasts that long. First we spit on the United Nations, then we expect them to clean up our mess. Our elected representatives are supposed to find diplomatic and benevolent solutions to these situations. Anyone can lash out and retaliate, that is not leadership or vision. Where is the wisdom and honor of the people we delegate our trust to?

To the rest of the world we are cowards - demanding Iraq to disarm, and after they comply, we attack with remote-control high-tech video-game weapons. And then lie about our reasons for invading. We the people bear complete responsibility for all that will follow, and it won't be pretty.

It is strange that most if not all of this destruction is instigated by people who claim to believe in God, or Allah. Many sane people turn away from religion, faced with the insanity of the 'true believers'. There is a lot of confusion: many people think that God is like Santa Claus, rewarding good little girls with presents and punishing bad little boys with lumps of coal; actually God functions more like the Easter Bunny, hiding surprises in plain sight. God does not choose the Lottery numbers, God does not make the weather, God does not endorse military actions by the self-righteous, God does not sit on a cloud listening to your prayers for prosperity. God does not smite anybody. If God watches the sparrow fall, you notice that it continues to drop, even to its death. Face the truth folks, God doesn't care, that's not what God is or does. If the human race drives itself to extinction, God will be there for another couple million years, 'watching' as a new species rises and falls to replace us. It is time to let go of primitive and magical beliefs, and enter the age of personal responsibility. Not telling others what is right for them, but making our own choices, and accepting consequences.

"Who would Jesus bomb?" This question is primarily addressing a Christian audience, but the same issues face the Muslims and the Jews: God's message is tolerance and love, not self-righteousness and hatred. Please consider "Thou shalt not kill" and "As ye sow, so shall ye reap". Not a lot of ambiguity there.

What is God? God is the force of life - the spark of creation. We each carry it within us, we share it with each other. Whether we are conscious of the life-force is a choice we make, every minute of every day. If you choose to ignore it, nothing will happen - you are just 'less conscious'. Maybe you are less happy (maybe not). Maybe you grow able to tap into the universal force, and increase the creativity in the universe. Love is anti-entropy. Please notice that 'conscious' and 'conscience' are related concepts.

Why God - what is the value? Whether committee consensus of a benevolent power that works through humans, or giant fungus under Oregon, the value of opening up to the concept of God is in coming to the realization that we are not alone, establishing a connection to the universe, the experience of finding completion. As individuals we may exist alone, but we are all alone together as a people. Faith is the answer to fear. Fear opposes love. To manipulate through fear is a betrayal of trust.

What does God want? No big mystery - simply that we try to help each other. We decide to make God-like decisions, rescuing falling sparrows, or putting the poor things out of their misery. Tolerance, giving, acceptance, forgiveness.

If this sounds a lot like pop psychology, that is my exact goal. Never underestimate the value of a pep-talk and a pat on the ass. That is basically all we give to our brave soldiers heading over to Iraq, and more than they receive when they return. I want to state these ideas in their simplest form, reducing all complexity, because each of us has to find our own answers anyway. Start from here...

I am amazed how many people think they know me, even people who I have never talked with. Many people will think that I should not be able to choose the time and manner of my own death. My position is that I only get one death, I want it to be a good one. Wouldn't it be better to stand for something or make a statement, rather than a fiery collision with some drunk driver? Are not smokers choosing death by lung cancer? Where is the dignity there? Are not the people the people who disregard the environment killing themselves and future generations? Here is the statement I want to make: if I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world. I refuse to finance the mass murder of innocent civilians, who did nothing to threaten our country. I will not participate in your charade - my conscience will not allow me to be a part of your crusade. There might be some who say "it's a coward's way out" - that opinion is so idiotic that it requires no response. From my point of view, I am opening a new door.

What is one more life thrown away in this sad and useless national tragedy? If one death can atone for anything, in any small way, to say to the world: I apologize for what we have done to you, I am ashamed for the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country. I was alive when John F. Kennedy instilled hope into a generation, and I was a sorry witness to the final crushing of hope by Dick Cheney's puppet, himself a pawn of the real rulers, the financial plunderers and looters who profit from every calamity; following the template of Reagan's idiocracy.

The upcoming elections are not a solution - our two party system is a failure of democracy. Our government has lost its way since our founders tried to build a structure which allowed people to practice their own beliefs, as far as it did not negatively affect others. In this regard, the separation of church and state needs to be reviewed. This is a large part of the way that the world has gone wrong, the endless defining and dividing of things, micro-sub-categorization, sectarianism. The direction we need is a process of unification, integrating all people into a world body, respecting each individual. Business and industry have more power than ever before, and individuals have less. Clearly, the function of government is to protect the individual, from hardship and disease, from zealots, from the exploitation, from monopoly, even from itself. Our leaders are not wise persons with integrity and vision - they are actors reading from teleprompters, whose highest goal is to stir up the mob. Our country slaughters Arabs, abandons New Orleaneans, and ignores the dieing environment. Our economy is a house of cards, as hollow and fragile as our reputation around the world. We as a nation face the abyss of our own design.

A coalition system which includes a Green Party would be an obvious better approach than our winner-take-all system. Direct electronic debate and balloting would be an improvement over our non-representative congress. Consider that the French people actually have a voice, because they are willing to riot when the government doesn't listen to them.

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government... " - Abraham Lincoln

With regard to those few who crossed my path carrying the extreme and unnecessary weight of animosity: they seemed by their efforts to be punishing themselves. As they acted out the misery of their lives it is now difficult to feel anything other than pity for them.

Without fear I go now to God - your future is what you will choose today.

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Malachi Ritscher, 1954-2006

by Nitsuh Abebe | Reprinted with permission from PitchforkMedia.com

In December 2002, the city of Chicago dedicated a statue called "The Flame of the Millennium"-- a seven-ton, stainless-steel, abstract rendering of a flame in high wind, standing over the Kennedy Expressway, just west of the downtown Loop. Last Friday, November 3, the statue appeared to be on fire. When authorities got there, they found a video camera, a canister of gasoline, a sign reading "Thou Shalt Not Kill", and a human body so badly charred that it was impossible to determine its sex. Someone had self-immolated, near a highway off-ramp, amid rush-hour traffic.

Over the next few days, members of Chicago's avant-garde music community would be shocked to learn that the person who'd done this was one of their own-- someone many of them had been running into, several nights a week, for more than a decade. Tougher still would be dealing with the reasons behind it. According to the statements left on his website, 52-year-old Malachi Ritscher had set himself on fire to protest the war in Iraq and the politics that allowed it to happen. And thus began the same debate, among his friends, among the public, on blogs, and in comment boxes across the internet-- an argument about which of two pigeonholes we'd slot this into: Was it an important act of political protest, or the tragic end of a mentally ill person?

Most fans of underground music are probably aware of Chicago's experimental music scene, or at least its most prominent figures: People like jazz saxophonist Ken Vandermark, who won a MacArthur Fellowship in 1999, or the countless players-- Jeb Bishop, Chad Taylor, Fred Lonberg-Holm-- whose names became recognizable to indie fans during the 1990s, in the heyday of Chicago post-rock. If you haven't spent time in Chicago, though, it's easy to underestimate how vibrant the scene is, and has been. Over the past decade, every week in the city has offered multiple opportunities to see avant-garde music, improvised instrumental performances, and free jazz performed by musicians from around the city and around the world, all of it supported by a large and complex circle of artists and fans. Just tracking down who's playing with whom can be a discographer's nightmare: This is a scene that cooperates.

And those most involved in that scene knew Malachi Ritscher. For years, he'd been a constant presence in the community, and probably its most committed documentarian: From the late 1980s onward, he spent an incredible number of nights out at shows, recording and photographing the musicians, and spending time with other fans. "According to his website, he recorded approximately 2,000 shows," says Dave Rempis, who plays saxophone in the Vandermark Five. "That would be six years of recording a show every single night. And from being around this scene, I can tell you that's not at all an overestimation. He was constantly at concerts-- I'd see him five nights a week."

"The recording was a big deal," says percussionist Michael Zerang, who's also played in a Vandermark-led group. "A lot of us couldn't afford recordings, and he would do it and virtually give it to us for free." Dozens of those recordings wound up becoming official releases, either through the artist's labels, or through Ritcher's own Savage Sound Syndicate. "Whenever I saw him," says Rempis, "he'd have a stack of 10 or 20 CD-Rs in his bag, so he could say, 'Oh yeah, I have something for you.'"

For most people, Ritscher's support meant just as much as his recording skills-- especially when it came to music that was so lacking in any kind of broad commercial appeal. "Just by being present all the time," says Zerang, laughing fondly, "well, there was always at least one person there." Bruce Finkelman owns the Empty Bottle-- a key venue for rock and experimental music-- and became used to seeing Ritscher show up for just about all of it: "Twenty below zero temperatures, three people in the club, and Malachi was one of them. Five feet of snow on the ground, and no one showing up, and he was there." It's a level of passion and enthusiasm that should be unimaginable to most of us-- going out, every other night, even in Chicago winters, to see free jazz?

All of these people remember Ritscher warmly: He was kind, intelligent, funny, outgoing, polite. And yet there's not much doubt that Ritscher was also, in a lot of ways, alone. He was born Mark David Ritscher, in 1954, in North Dakota; according to the obituary he posted to his own website, he dropped out of high school and married at age 17. He had a son. Ten years later, when his marriage dissolved, Ritscher moved to Chicago and immersed himself in the music scene-- taking his son's name, Malachi, for his own. Music wasn't the only thing he immersed himself in, either: He was an active anti-war activist, an avid photographer, a collector, a reader, and a writer. He painted watercolors, wrote poetry, dabbled with various musical instruments, and grew peppers for his own hot-sauce recipe.

One thing he did not seem to do was forge close friendships. He was estranged from his ex-wife, son, and grandchildren. People in Chicago knew him, saw him often, and found him outgoing and friendly-- but that tended to be the extent of it. "I always kind of got the impression that Malachi chose to distance himself a little bit from people," says Rempis. "I don't think he had a regular group of friends who called him up and said 'Do you want to go out on Friday night?' He moved as an individual, mostly. He was to some degree a loner, and I think he would probably describe himself that way-- the ironic part of it being that he knew hundreds of people around town. For me, I don't even know if I had his phone number, but I saw him maybe three nights a week. He knew many, many people who without a doubt would have described him as a friend."

Writing his own obituary, Ritscher says much the same: "As a child, he was intensely afraid of many things, especially heights; he spent the rest of his life trying to face his fears, without ever coming to terms with his fear of people....He had many acquaintances, but few friends; and wrote his own obituary, because no one else really knew him."

Self-immolation is not a common act, mostly because it's one of the slowest, most painful, and messiest ways a person can kill himself. For most Americans, consciousness of the act comes down to one man, and one photograph: a 1963 shot of a Vietnamese monk named Thích Qu?ng Ð?c, seated in the Lotus position in the middle of a Saigon street, consumed by flames, protesting the treatment of Buddhists under a Catholic regime. The few monks who did this didn't consider it suicide, but rather a form of non-violent protest-- a way for pacifists to speak louder than those who kill. (Gandhi, when questioned on the limits of pacifism, had suggested similar thinking.) There's no question that self-immolation is agonizing, and that's precisely why it's been used as a form of protest: It's meant to show an intense commitment to one's cause.

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To learn more, please start at I Heard You Malachi.ORG

to ANYONE and EVERYONE who has told a friend about us, sent an email saying 'hello', come to a show, posted a flattering comment, said a kind word, cared enough to say something, had the money to buy a cd/tshirt, booked us in their town, let us sleep on their floor/sofa (and from time to time a real bed), given us advice and/or words of encouragement... WE THANK YOU.


- The Brothers Plague