Your Demise – The Golden Age

Dear readers, I write to you in a state that can only be described as pure existential horror. I feel at any moment my reality may collapse around me and I will be driven utterly and irrefutably insane by the events that precede this soliloquy. In the hope of sparing you, my faithful subscribers, the same fate, I will share the events of the last few days on this most hallowed of pages. But I must be quick, for I fear the baying hounds of mental ill health are baying outside my door even now as I type frantically in this dim candlelight.

It started innocently enough. I was awoken from my slumber two days ago with a casual request to meet a contact of mine in Hoxton. Hurridly I put on my cloak and set out into the early morning dusk, skirting around the drunken detritus of Kingsland road and avoiding the gaze of the ketamine afflicted hipsters looking for someone twice their size to pick an ill-thought fight with. There, behind the storm doors of the 12 Bells pub was my contact with SWNK, looking altogether worse for wear. He was pale, grey in complexion, with a fine film of sweat over his troubled brow. He handed me a package. Small and light. A data CD of some sort. ‘It’s too much for us, Doghead. Perhaps you’re the only one strong enough to take it. We’ve had three people give up and start listening to dub step in less than 12 hours. No-one has the constitution for it, except maybe you. Please, be careful.’ Without as much as a moment to retort he was gone, staggering hurriedly into the Hackney fog. I was alone with this package, seemingly so banal and unassuming, yet apparently potent, capable of reducing my usually stalwart colleagues to a gibbering mess. I pushed it into a deep pocket and hurried home.

As I got to the warm comfort of my abode, curiosity claimed the first victory against me in what would be the ultimate battle for my sanity. I tore the envelope open and saw within the very thing I least expected: why in Loki’s name had my contact given me a Your Demise CD? Small snippets of memories passed me by: throwing half eaten fruit at them while they played on stage, a failed attempt on their part to cast an AIDS spell on messageboard users, a heartfelt and tear-strained plea to spare them the indignity of a prison beating in a northern town. But this didn’t add up. Surely the CD I held in my gloved hand – The Golden Age – wasn’t the source of my contact’s feverish warnings? This band were utterly incompetent and frustratingly popular, but there certainly was no need for such foreboding. My curiosity had scored an early victory, and in short succession my own arrogance landed a second blow against myself. This next part, cherished reader, is of eternal importance. If this preamble has left you dubious, please note that I write such introduction only to illustrate how unprepared I also was. In time I will have to pay the ultimate price for my impetuosity.

With assured confidence I placed The Golden Age onto my Gramophone, poured myself a generous brandy, and sat into my most comfortable armchair, ready to soak in whatever had supposedly driven three of my colleagues to despair. By the end of the first song, I had began to understand the extent of my mistake. This music had no soul. It was the visage of an alluring muse in reality constructed by papier mache and gallons of spiders. This was a beautiful tree completely overtaken by rot from the inside out. It was finding out the night sky was nothing but a black curtain and fairy lights. It was a mixtape of completely unrelated, unconnected, hyper-produced, bile-devoid, happy go lucky, M&M Store Leicester Square, plastic Manga toy nonsense. I couldn’t help but let out a long, high pitched murmur that seemed to come from the bottom of my spine. There was no escaping this living nightmare. It pulled me in with its guitar hooks, it  spoke to me in sweet murmurs, pushing the buttons that it knew it could push, all the while secure in the knowledge that it had nothing to offer. The belligerence and self confidence that drove me through my days, my trademark attitudes that defined myself were waning, excreting themselves from my very pores along with the feverish, ammonia flavoured sweat that covered my dishevelling body. I felt myself compelled to create a twitter account, buy a blackberry phone, put a hat on my head at an illogical angle, throw away all my books and spend my nights reblogging tumblr photos of characters from the wire, I felt like going to a massive venue, watching pop punk bands play mosh parts, going to after parties and fingering tattooed girls then taking photos and posting them on hardcore messageboards. By the end of the record, I had forgotten what it meant to be angry, what it meant to care about anything but friends and hanging out and road trips.

By some absolute miracle a chimney sweep walked past my window whistling a Grimlock song, snapping me out of my berk stupor and momentarily back into the world of the real. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have been lost eternally in mediocrity. As it stands, old friends, my time is short. Your Demise have done too much damage to my fragile reality. I can feel the urge to move into a Supreme 5 panel hat becoming too strong, far too strong. Save yourself. Do not listen to this record, ever. It has nothing to offer but oblivion.

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