ZapTown

We Are The World
Clay Stones
Manimal
Rating: 5 out of 5

Link:
We Are The World: http://www.myspace.com/WATWLA
Purchase digital album on Indie Rocket

I have driven for hours trying to reveal the secrets to Clay Stones. Listening front to back and then front again, I feel them taunting me through their finger-pointing style of  electronics and ball of confusion tactics.

I feel like I have reached the promised land, yet I cannot help but believe shangri-la is only a mirage as We Are The World are the masters of sensory illusion.

“Goya Monster” sounds like a pep rally of the damned. “Angels and number one…number one, one, one. Angles and telephones keep us apart,” they sing. By the time you realize what was just said, not understanding what it actually means, you are in an uncontrollable gyrating fit.

Who the hell are these people?

Deciphering Clay Stones is like being shoved down in an Egyptian tomb and the lid closed. You just decend into the darkness and hope to come out alive, but what you end up with is an underground maze of dance orgies and hyper-energetic performance art all rolled into one.

The THX-like build-up into the title track gives us just enough reasons for our nerves to become shot, but then the song turns into an electronic marching ballad of religious imagery and celebratory masquerades. They are in control, ready to mold you into their own image. This is as pure as spirit and place can get.

The ritual continues with the helpless and jerky “Fight Song” that spirals into an out of control playground of lyrical verbage jabs. Have the lines become blurred, or are left with our own retreat that turns to nature as its savior?

“What’cha runnin’ from,” they echo out on “Clover and Dirt.” The junked out electronics only add layers and speeds up. You want to run, but the only thing you know that’s left to do is embrace the band’s ambiguity.

Between the beauty that explodes from Clay Stones and the intense fits of danceability, this is an album of exceptional ability. Never would I have thought I could say all those background samples from all of my Depeche Mode and Yello albums would swirl in my mind like my life flashing before my eyes.

If insanity is perfection, then Clay Stones cannot be more perfect.

 We Are The World - Fight Song (from the album "Clay Stones"): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download