Father Divine knows how to overwhelm. The album sprawls, taking up almost all 80 minutes of an entire CD. In case the sheer length of it didn’t let you know what you were getting into, there’s the sound. Had Mr. Bungle continued after their last album “California” it would not be inconceivable that they continued in this vein. Of course, I use that comparison as the highest compliment.
“Requiem for Intellect” skronks, thrashes, blows up a couple of times into pure anarchy, and generally does what it wants. Let it. You’ll be surprised where they take you. The horns happen to be a nice touch for me. Horns are over a lot of this album in various ways. A few times I’m reminded of the absolute joy of “The Flying Luttenbachers” or perhaps “Shining” that wonderful Norwegian Jazz/Metal band. Certainly the chaos is there.
There’s the warning. You’re not going to get your kicks easily with this album. Instead, you’ll have to do some serious listening. As a fan of a band that puts in this amount of effort, I’m quite frankly amazed. Considering all the bands following a more minimal (say accessible) approach, it’s doubly refreshing to hear a maximal approach to sound. Even the track lengths are long. You really need to get into it, this isn’t for passive listening.
Perhaps that’s what I enjoy most about it. All of it is done in a specific way, their way. While they were making this, they were doing it out of a pure appreciation of the sound. Listening to it, I can be confident in saying they made this for intense focus. It’s a weird album for sure; it gets hard to pinpoint a specific favorite track as they each have so many movements.
If you ever wondered what happened to the early 90s New York weirdness, well it has been hiding in New Jersey all these years. Come find them.