Oh my God. Hello there. Greetings and eternal and especially most infernal hails. My name is Annie is Undead, and today we're going to be covering the fifth studio album from industrial metal outfit Uniform, American Standard.

Uniform was founded in 2013 with two members, Ben Greenberg and Michael Berdan. They change their lineup fairly often around the various different albums they've done. Notable albums from them include Shame, Wake in Fright, as well as one of their two collaborations with The Body, Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back.

They share a lot of similarities with other artists like Kenmode, Youth Code, and of course, Wreck & Reference. They're sludgy, impactful, and they have all the grace and elegance of a cinder block being thrown at your head.

The instrumentation also changes from album to album. Some of them are a little bit more heavy into the industrial side, some lean heavily into the metal side. It all really depends on the lineup and also the overall sound that they're going for, and even sometimes with who they're collaborating with. Uniform also just deals in a lot of heavier topics, especially when it comes to drug abuse and poverty and just general violence and other unpleasantness.

However, with American Standard, the topic is equally as personal, but also a little bit more of a recent thing because the essential concept and discussion around this album is around vocalist Michael Berdan's ongoing lifelong struggle with bulimia.

It's also a very stark reminder that recovery is not linear and that being able to handle your own personal struggles, whether it be past, present, and/or future, you can do so in an artistic way as a way to vent it out and really process it, which can sometimes help. All that to say that any room that you are in where you're listening to this album, it will suck the air right out.

Producer and guitarist Ben Greenberg does an immaculate job at letting every single instrument shine. Even though the overall sound of the album is incredibly sludgy and heavy, you can still really distinctly pick out each instrument as it's playing. The shrieks, the wails, and also sometimes the gargling noises that Berdan makes on this album on his vocals are just incredibly haunting. It really is the stuff of nightmares.

The album is exactly four songs long, starting with a 21-minute monolith, "American Standard", which opens with a very cold call and response from Berdan to himself. And then after the call and response, it just opens up into this cacophony of instrumentation with jagged synth, blaring guitars, and heavy pounding drums. Dual drummers, Mike Sharp and Michael Bloom, do an incredible job of throwing down some insanely vulgar beats in the back of this track. The bass, however, on this track is a little bit further back in the mix. That improves on the rest of the album.

Something else that's quite impressive is that this song goes in suites. It is a 21 minute song, but it never feels a 21 minute song because it flows through in a way that creates different distinct parts throughout. As someone who grew up on 70s prog rock, I really appreciate this. I really truly feel also that anyone who is a fan of the Swans discography from the last 10 years would really sink their teeth into this just simply because it's so heavy and brooding and also just insanely raw.

Following the harrowing title track, there are three other songs that are equally as devastating: "This is Not a Prayer", "Clemency", and "Permanent Embrace".

"This is Not a Prayer" opens, essentially, begging to be as stick-thin and as small as a tree sapling. And throughout the track, you constantly hear Berdan pleading and begging, "Please don't forget me." Feeling like you're withering away and that people are going to eventually forget about you, but also feeling most comfortable in yourself when your disease is at its worst is the theme of this song. And also, once again, the drums on this song are incredibly mechanical and tight. Brad Truax's bass absolutely barrels through this entire song, which is a really great contrast to Ben Greenberg's feather light guitar work.

Something that I really feel works well on this track is the way that the lyrics are composed. It doesn't really read like a traditional Uniform song. Instead, I feel like it reads a lot more like a poem or a sonnet. It is incredibly repetitive, but the repetition is what makes it so impactful.

"Clemency" is by all means not a bad track. However, because it does sound like a standard Uniform song, it doesn't really have the same atmosphere as the others. And also because of this, I think it grinds the album to a little bit of a halt, whereas the rest of the album sounds a lot more menacing and cold and really off-putting. And for all I know, that might have been the intention of the song. Maybe it wants you to halt and stop and have to listen to it in a different way than you would the others. It probably is my least favorite overall. It sounds just a bit too clean, whereas the others have a bit of a rougher edge to them, and so therefore, a little bit more consistent.

"Permanent Embrace", to me, is probably the most elegant, and I would argue, beautiful song on the album. It has these sweeping organs throughout and synthesizers that honestly remind me more of the synths and organs used on Nightside Eclipse by Emperor. I would remiss not to discuss the lyrics further in-depth on this album simply because they are unlike anything else in Uniform's discography. They're far more literary, descriptive. This especially being in part to getting two contemporary literary authors, Maggie Seie and B. R. Yeager, to assist with helping with the lyrics, both editing and writing. Having two incredible literary minds help out on such an intense an emotional album really helps push it for me personally. I really think that even though you can't always understand what Berdan is saying when he is screaming, you can still really feel the raw intense emotion. And then when you eventually go down to actually read the lyrics, they are really quite poetic.

It's intensely grotesque and also incredibly striking just how deep he was willing to go on the overall content of this album discussing something that is so personal. And I really think that the way that it is shared on this album is something really quite beautiful.

I feel like Berdan really uses the language of the divine in order to create something that is very altruistic and really powerful. It is the album that I will spin the way that I would spin, say, Giles Corey by Giles Corey or Caligula by Lingua Ignota. It is as personal as it is impactful. There is really something to be said about an album that sounds like the inside of a meat factory that can still also make you just weep. I cried when I first listened to it, truthfully. It's also just grandiose and large in a way that I've wanted to see from Uniform for I've been a fan for a really long time, and I've been following their career and listening to all their albums.

And my issue with every single one, despite really enjoying them, has been that they never push the themes far enough. They're always heavy and intense and incredibly well written and incredibly well-produced, but it never really feels like it's going into a place that is deeper than it wants to be, which I completely understand. However, American Standard really pushes everything to the forefront and really is doing something completely different than they've ever done before.

I really feel like it towers above anything else in their back catalog. It is genuinely a masterpiece. For as much praise as I'm giving the album, and as much as I really implore anyone who is willing to listen to it to do so, it is still a heavy and hard listen. But to me, good art is not something that you can just sit down and enjoy and it just be a walk in the park. Sometimes it has to be heavy, and sometimes it has to be something that you have to analyze and look inside yourself to really, truly enjoy. It is the feel bad album of the year of 2024.

I think that Uniform are really proving that American experimental music can really push itself further. I'm going to give this album a very strong 9 to light 10.

Annie is Undead. Uniform. Anthony Fantano. Forever.