Posted: by The Alt Editing Staff
In 1832, Edgar Allen Poe had his short story “Metzengerstein: A Tale in Imitation of the German” published in a local Philadelphia newspaper. The story centers around the cruel Fredrick, Baron of Metzengerstein, and a prophetic tapestry depicting an unusually large horse stoically staring as its rider slowly dies from a stab wound to the back by a member of the Metzengerstein family. As fate would have it, a stray horse much bigger than the others is brought to Fredrick, where he quickly becomes obsessed with the steed, neglecting all other duties to ride the horse every hour of every day. It is unclear where Fredrick ends and the horse begins as the two are bonded together, Frederick riding the steed aimlessly to the point of insanity and his eventual foretold death. He is more horse than man; he is more man than horse–they are one uncontrollable, terrifying beast. He is both.
Enter Shearling, 193 years after the publication of Poe’s short story, born from the breakup of the Los Angeles-based experimental group Sprain. Shearling’s first release, the hour-and-two-minute-long Motherfucker, I Am Both: “Amen” and “Hallelujah”.., is a foretold story that has existed for ages before Shearling, before Poe, before any semblance of a world we know. Former Sprain lead singer Alexander Kent and guitarist Sylvie Simmons are joined by Andrew Chanover, Wesley Nelson, and Elizabeth Carver to create a musical feat that tackles the experience of growing up religious and queer in middle America, with a vicious realism almost too sickening to sit through. Motherfucker is an intrepid exploration of identity filtered through a horrific hodgepodge of noise that will tear through the universe to find and force itself upon you.
Motherfucker is a song of sheer passion. It’s an impassioned plea for freedom and individuality, set to unrelenting, ever-changing instrumentals that are impossible to predict. Simmons’ guitar is terrifying and claustrophobic as Kent screams so hard he’s gagging, almost vomiting, at times over drums that slam like a heartbeat. Rather than sounding constricted by fire and fury, Kent funnels this intensity into a hate letter to his home state of Idaho, so detailed that it can only come from a deep place of hostile, earnest observation. He uses the state achievements of Idaho to describe some of the most dehumanizing moments of his life, like having his sexuality exposed to the public without his consent; he uses the Appalossa (Idaho’s state horse) as a stand-in for a doomed, all-consuming lover and the Western White Pine (Idaho’s state tree) as the location of such a life-altering event. Shearling takes the primitive beauty of such a rural landscape and corrodes it into nothing more than a real-life equivalent to Hell.
Throughout the track, there are small sparks of heaven, an angelic sound can creep forward and—if only just briefly—overpower this exceeding doom. These moments of light, scattered throughout the hour-long song, are overwhelming, a swelling sensation of being safe on a desolate plain; they are a small sip of water offered by a stranger after months alone in a desert. These crackling transmissions depict the Appalossa as a loving savior, with Kent feeling ever devoted to the affection, drawn into it despite the violent noise surrounding these moments before and after. It is the sound of total devotion—devotion for a man who doesn’t love you back, devotion for a God who was never listening in the first place.
Shearling utilizes all 62 minutes of Motherfucker to explore queerness and the ugliest parts of it that often go overlooked. Beyond exploring the life-ruining effect of being outed, Kent angrily questions how a state like Idaho, where Ernest Hemingway novels and My Own Private Idaho are the two most recognizable pieces associated with the state, could shun him for his sexuality so quickly; how can it be a place of hatred when it’s so deeply intertwined with queerness in the public eye? The track’s loudness and distorted nature, paired with Kent’s vocals that shift from staggered screaming to impassioned belting without a moment’s notice, bring this dire story to life. If there is room in our queer cultural zeitgeist for fairytale slop like Heated Rivalry, there’s room for a prolific horror story like Motherfucker.
Motherfucker, I Am Both: “Amen” and “Hallelujah”… does not go down easy. It’s jarring, it’s volatile, it’s filthy. It drives this innate fear into the listener with every passing second; it is unforgiving and will leave you queasy. Concomitantly, it is overwhelmingly beautiful and offers a realistic depiction of queerness in a time period that needs stories like this now more than ever. Is it a dream or a nightmare? Motherfucker, it’s both.
Disappointing / Average / Good / Great / Phenomenal
Motherfucker, I Am Both: “Amen” and “Hallelujah”… is out now.
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Jules Kelly | @snaiImaiI
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