There’s a clean, architectural feeling to Son Lux’s Anticon debut, At War with Walls and Mazes. Every orchestral flourish, muffled hip-hop beat, and defeated sigh are arranged and connected in an almost unsettlingly straightforward manner. Like the modernist designs Howard Roark shocked the world with in proto-fascist Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, Ryan Lott (nee Lux) chooses to be perfectly spare and linear, while many of his peers (especially on Anticon) swath their ‘master builder’ tendencies in tonal chaos. The drum shots on “Betray” are crisp and conclusive; even the fluttering flutes that take the track out know when to stay and when to get out of the way. Elsewhere, “Break” is a tightly wound powder keg, complete with slammed piano chords and cascading tom-toms. It’s music that would fit in the background if it wasn’t so intent on silently staring at you; indeed, it’s easy to compare Lott and his creations with Roark’s callous and imposing artifice.
That line of thought becomes a perilous trap to fall into, however, when his lyrics are taken into account. While Mazes’ musical arrangements possess a straight-lacedly aggressive attitude, its thematic content is passive in voice and tone. “You will betray me, baby/ And I will be true,” he moans on “Betray” like a postmodern masochist. Even when our protagonist tries to find some sort of closure to the ennui that spreads across Mazes, as he does on “Enemy”, he’s willing to concede defeat before even unleashing the offensive: “You stand between me/ And all of my enemies,” he repeats as operatic chaos erupts on the record’s sole moment of sonic release.
Resignation can oft contain as much fury as it does regret; vocally, Mazes instead becomes consumed with oppressive indecisiveness. It’s as if the crushing weight of things is too heavy for Lott to raise his voice. Throughout the record, his vocals rarely get louder than a creaky whisper; when they do on tracks like “Stay,” they’re buried in dissonance and static, as if to suggest a conflict between subject and environment.
All this joylessness can get a bit tiring, and its overlong, overbearing tendencies make Mazes an occasionally unwelcoming record that doesn’t demand repeat listens, despite its innate melodic motion. However, the record’s alternately hypnotic and chaotic back half shows promise. It’ll be interesting to see where Son Lux goes from here; let’s just hope his next record isn’t titled Atlas Shrugged.