Black Dresses - WASTEISOLATION

SOCIETY HAS FAILED US, BUT ABANDONED THEM

It was their first, and in retrospect, their best. After enduring Black Dresses' entire discography - sometimes reverently other times grievously - the conclusion had been made: WASTEISOLATION stews in the angst better than any other, equipped with hateful honesty and candid realism. Sure, Devi McCallion and Ada Rook's Electro-Industrial feels theatrical and brutish, but that sense of extremism comes as a direct result of reality's grim fates. The injustices, especially against women and those within the LGBT community, is a putrid thing to witness, yet alone withstand. In that sense, WASTEISOLATION is reactionary. An instantaneous bombast of vitriol; fair and authentic. However, what makes Black Dresses' debut so impactful lies not in the misanthropy, nor the addicting Pop measures, nor the blown-out rhapsody of bass. It's the undertones, or the reasoning for the crude and callousness. McCallion and Rook's resentment, hate, fear, and anxieties exist as a representation for society's ill woes, and the negative impact repeated infliction causes upon the self. Tracks like 'GO INSIDE,' 'WOUND,' and 'SLITHER' detail, either lyrically or emotionally, the cruel punishments Black Dresses have faced for merely existing. Who can love a world where that persists?

The second point of commendation comes in the twisted fun WASTEISOLATION procures. For me at least, art always elicits its greatest reaction when pitting paradoxes against one another. Discordance between presentation and message. A plaintive essay on abuse with somber discourse and real-life - yet awkwardly distant - examples will fail to reach an audience to stun and disturb when compared to in-your-face, jarring declarations. Ignoring the lyrics of WASTEISOLATION, though entirely impossible, results in an infinitely-enjoyable experience complete with anthemic hooks, shifty bridges, and loud, bass-rattling beats. In other words; Pop. The genre typically reserved from thought, quarantined and sequestered from consideration. But tracks like 'THOUGHTS & PRAYERS,' 'IM EARTH,' and 'LEGACY' rapturously toy with sound addiction. Yeah, there's Noise rattling under the surface. Yeah, Black Dresses' lyrics would ban them from any parentally-guided radio station. Yeah, the proud amateurishness is an acquired taste. And yeah, their squelching, tone-deaf vocals are futile in appreciation. But looking beyond that all, finding value in the filth, is where true bastions of art can be found.