About This Item
2018's InchCastration AnxietyInch, the debut full-length from Chicago's Hide, presented an adept evolution in the journey of interdisciplinary artists Heather Gabel and Seth Sher. Trading in concrete and traditional songwriting and compositional structure for more challenging, stripped back, and cathartic arrangement, the duo ventured to reconfigure industrial music for a contemporary age. InchHell Is HereInch, Hide's 2019 sophomore full-length, sees this evolution progress even further. Using their previously established blueprint, Gabel and Sher poke and prod at the perception of musical context, and remind the listener that feelings of anxiety, pain, and discomfort are equally as important as those of resolution. Perhaps the strongest tool utilized here is the material's dichotomy between the abrasive and the sterile. Beneath the crushing noisy exterior, sparks the familiar human voice. Divorced from their caustic counterparts Gabel's vocals play a decisive role in cementing narrative for the material's uncompromising assault on the senses. Opening track InchChainsawInch immediately lays the groundwork for the excursion to come. Twisted, cold, and dry repetition soundtracks a one sided catcalling verbal assault. The theme of objectification carries through to the following track Inch999Inch with the use of a well-placed vocal sample that declares Inch... when you depersonalize another person... it seems to make it easier to do things you shouldn't do.Inch This sentiment is expertly echoed throughout the rest of InchHell Is HereInch and attempts to forcefully remind the listener of humanity's absurd and animalistic nature. Nearing the end of the punishing trek we find InchPainInch, which is arguably the record's most formidable use of space. The call and response nature of both the harsh percussive elements paired with the impending vocals effectively induces a deaf
