NEW BURIAL: YOUNG DEATH / NIGHTMARKET

As a Burial fan, I have to admit that I’ve been brutally teased by the dark, visionary, beauty-weaving motherfucker for about three years now. The last truly heart-blasting release that he made was around this time back in the ancient epoch of 2013, Rival Dealer, a cross between an EP and a religious experience, taking you down to Hell, up to Heaven and back again. It was more of the same, the same in this case being ‘cathartic genius’, but it was also a change in direction, and there we all were, cans round our heads, wondering the same thing: where the bloody hell is he going to go from here?

Since then, there have actually been a number of Burial appearances, although they’ve been teeny, tiny drops of this, that and the other. Remember ‘Temple Sleeper’? It was an oldschool braid-flinger decorated with the Burial hallmarks, and part of the problem was that that’s exactly what it felt like; a 1992 cut picked up from somebody’s cellar with the thinnest layer of that Burial magic painted over it. A surprise, really, considering his last release practically pulled you up beyond the stars and blew MDMA dust into the face of God. 'Temple Sleeper' was a drop back down to Earth, which was a direction it made sense to travel, in many respects, but I think it left everyone feeling a little ‘egh’, especially now Burial’s been hyped to the point where everything he does is given the same mad reverence as a verse of the New Testament.

Then earlier this year (unless I’m forgetting something), there was ‘Sweetz’, a Burial/Zomby collaboration that I believed, based on the combination alone, had the potential for true greatness, maybe even the same chart-topping success amongst narcotic, pretentious audiophiles as ‘Moth’. But the track was divisively experimental, a real out-there work of atmosphere and repetition that I understand some people enjoyed, but I wasn’t at all taken by. To me, the elements were there, as were the few loops and Burial fingerprints I went along with, but the almost seven-minute study in audial abstraction didn’t leave me truly satisfied. Once again, maybe I was blinded by the hype, but I found the release a strange disappointment, leaving my Burial-balls as painfully big and blue as ever.

And now, we have a new release, a two-track EP: YOUNG DEATH / NIGHTMARKET. Cool, nice, I thought; good names, and an actual auteur EP for the first time since the forgotten days of yore. The first thing I noticed was the shortness of the tracks; together, they came to about thirteen minutes of pure Burial, and all I could scream inside was “MORE! MORE!!”, but something always beats nothing when it comes to being a devout Burial fanboy, and upon listening I was glad to hear in these two tracks what I always truly hope for in any Burial release: a committal to the audial personality that made him a genius – you know, the intakes of breath, the zippo clicks, the track’s pieces bursting into life like rediscovered memories – and an exhibition of bold, new experimentation.

So, are the tracks any good? Obviously this is no opus like Rival Dealer was intended as, and it makes no claims to be. Instead, there are two very different creations here. The first, ‘Young Death’, is Burial in his most comfortable territory – out in the rain, with a synth as a blanket against the cold, and soulful samples guiding you along its roughly-beaten dirt track. The refrain is uplifting, and typically gorgeous, supported with pieces that range from subtle arpeggiated blips to the brief but powerful hammering of piano keys. As usual, the track transforms, and its second act is far colder and mysterious (I have to point out the jarring laugh of the Skull Kid), and brings you down until what could easily be the ‘Teardrop’ beat exits stage left. It’s tried-and-true Burial, but it works. If you want to step into an oil painting and have your heartstrings pulled with all the gentility of a lover’s spirit, then yeah, ‘Young Death’ is a success.

But what’s really worth talking about here is the second half; a longer track, ‘Nightmarket’. Immediately, the sound is radically different – above the clinking background noise, the human sighs, all of that, is an electronic fluttering of bleeps, like alien waves from outer space – a rarely heard sound for Burial, or, rather, a sound rarely heard in such a raw, electronic form; more artificial than his usual organic kind of style. It arrives and vanishes repeatedly, punctuated in between by segments of distant beauty or anxious nothingness, and the track just builds and builds, and its refrain becomes stronger and stronger, the voice turning from indistinct mumblings to graceful piano-like trills up into proud, aggressive synth stabs, with cinematic sampling creating a fucking hell of a buzz. There is no drumbeat – it is nonexistent, or at least it might as well be, and that in itself is a sizeable change of pace. I found it strangely arresting, and very, very interesting as a new droplet from heaven that I see in the work of this mysterious bloke and his weird, creepy tunes.

So is it good? Yes, it’s very good. Of course it bloody is, and it’s just indescribably delightful to hear new Burial that I actually enjoy and don’t find myself straining to enjoy just because I’ve latched onto the name like an entitled little leech. But is it really good? Hmm, well that’s tough to say. It doesn’t break into your life and rearrange the furniture like anything on Rival Dealer, but it’s unfair to expect that. What I do hope is that it’s a sign of things to come, something that will meet my unfairly high expectations and beat my heart into a slab of tenderised meat, but in the meantime I guess I’ll give the verdict as: great if you’re as obsessed with the man as I am, and parts of it, like the denouement of 'Nightmarket', can still smack you around, but there’s very little here that really gives your insides a good, solid kicking.

Why Silent Hill 2 is the Greatest Game of All Time

Anyone who knows me well enough has probably experienced me going off on one about the genius of Silent Hill 2 at some point in our relationship. It’s a game that’s disturbed and fascinated me since childhood, and it was one of my first truly beloved works of art, for Silent Hill 2, as well as being a clunky survival horror that would shitten the pants of even the most jaded fear fanatic, is pure art. In fact, I’ve never seen any game that aims for the emotional depths Silent Hill 2 dares to plumb, and definitely nothing that succeeds so beautifully, or horrifyingly. So, since I’m still completely obsessed with it, here’s another (shh) blog on why Silent Hill 2 is not only my favourite game of all time, but possibly one of my favourite works of art of all time, of any medium.

SH2 isn't just a scary game; it's a crushingly sad one, too, so it's even more fun!

Okay, so the Silent Hill series has blown up in popularity since the year SH2 came out, and the franchise has since disintegrated into total dogshit (except for that one thing that pains me too much to talk about). The first Silent Hill came out on the PS1 and was intended as a challenger to Resident Evil’s B-movie zombie carnival. It involved a single dad getting trapped in the titular town and fighting to save his daughter from the spooky designs of a bunch of sinister occultists, and the story continued in Silent Hill 3, with the weird Alessa-and-the-cult nonsense continuing to pop up all over the franchise, including the movie adaptation. Silent Hill 2, however, is unique in that it follows its own story. It’s not a game about villains or cults or ghosts or any of that bullshit; instead, the team decided to revolve SH2's story around its central character rather than the town itself, and, by going down this more personal route, ended up creating maybe the best videogame story of all time.

The story is: One day, melancholic everyman James Sunderland receives a letter from his wife, Mary, telling him to come meet her at Silent Hill; however, James tells us that Mary actually died three years ago from an unnamed disease. Intrigued, confused, and maybe a little desperate, James drives over to the town, which is now deserted, thick with fog and crammed with freaky monsters, to search for her. As the story progresses, the history of James and Mary’s marriage is illuminated, in all its brutal tragedy, and James descends further and further into the darkest corners of his own soul. Along the way he meets a number of other disturbed and unhelpful individuals who've found themselves beckoned by the town, including a mysterious woman who calls herself Maria, who bears an uncanny resemblance to his late wife. The plot thickens, reality turns on its head, and tragedies begin to unfold.

Symbolism is scattered all over the place, and not always as obviously as this.

Remember when games didn’t insult your intelligence? Believe it or not in this age of hand-holding narrative rubbish, back in 2001, Team Silent poured their heart and soul into this game, stuffing it with so much symbolism and fascinating detail that I’m still discovering new things about it to this day. Nearly every tiny part of it is deliberate and meaningful. The monsters, for instance, aren’t just creepy enemies intended to stand in your way, but actual, manifested inner demons, perversely sexual and just human enough to give you the howling fantods. Freudian psychological shit is going on all over the place, from the esoteric puzzles to the surreal, dilapidated settings; this isn’t so much a game as it is a horror walk through the inside of someone’s head, and what could be more disturbingly raw and terrifying than that?

It’s the little things that make the atmosphere of Silent Hill 2 so unsettling, and it might’ve been the first thing to ever teach me that for something to really fuck you up, subtlety is key. The dialogue, for instance, is jarring and unnatural, almost as if the characters can’t understand each other and maybe aren’t having the conversations that they think they are. Fucked-up English dialogue in Japanese games is usually either hilarious or irritating, but in this game, it actively works to keep you feeling truly alone in the nightmare. In fact, the sound design in its entirety is one of SH2’s crowning achievements, with its ungodly monster cries, its industrial shrieks, and the deafening use of silence itself. Also, the soundtrack is a masterpiece, capable of pulling at your heartstrings one moment and tearing your nerves to shreds at the next.

As the game progresses, the levels become more and more warped and illogical.

Now, when it comes to gameplay, Silent Hill 2 isn’t a winner by any means. It’s not exactly a game to wind down with; it’s barely even fun, in the purest sense. In that case, why do I say that it’s my favourite game of all time? Well, for one thing, games aren’t all about running around killing bad guys and picking up loot. Games are also about setting, and ambience, and exploration. Silent Hill is, at its essence, a walk through a haunted house, or an entire complex of haunted houses. It’s a descending march into a spiralling abyss, a masochistic journey of fear, intrigue and misery, and from start to finish, you're completely submerged in its unique atmosphere. And it couldn’t be a film, or a novel, or a comic book, or anything else. It only works as a world that you yourself must dare to walk through, and be personally affected by.

I could probably write about the ins and outs of Silent Hill 2 for the rest of my life, but, ultimately, the reason I love Silent Hill 2 is because of how much work it puts into making you feel something. As a horror game, it’s the absolute zenith, getting under your skin and keeping you up at night better than any of today’s jump-scare asylum-walkers could hold a candle to. But it’s more than just a thrill ride. SH2’s horrors aren’t in zombies or ghosts or things beyond our understanding; its power to disturb comes from the horrors we all understand – things like guilt, shame, despair, grief, hatred, desire and death. Silent Hill 2 is an expedition through the bleakest shadows of the human psyche. It’s cerebral enough to be analysed within an inch of its life, and harrowing enough to haunt you from now until the end of time. It's fifteen years old now, and maybe a little dated in many ways, but there's still never been anything like it, and if you're looking for a heavy, emotional, frightening and multi-layered gaming experience, consider yourself told that, for me at least, Silent Hill 2 is the number one option, and a work of genuine artistic genius.

P.S: If you’ve read this far and actually fancy giving it a go, as you obviously fucking need to, stay the hell away from 2012’s HD collection, as it’s a monumental clusterfuck. If you can't get the PS2 version, the PC one's easily downloadable.