The British-American poet W. H. Auden, in his poem “The Age of Anxiety” (1947), highlights humanity’s isolation in an increasingly industrialized and failing world. Nearly 80 years later, the Sick Man of Europe is picking up the threads of the same discussion: how to navigate in a world that is diametrically opposed to our needs? How not to lose your ipseity in a data-driven culture vying for your attention? Sick Man of Europe’s eponymous debut album is an exploration of these existential matters—and more.
Yeah, the Sick Man of Europe does not shy away from fundamental issues—does he? The world-weary Sick Man of Europe album is brimming with probing questions that most people would rather ignore, suppress, or flatly refute. Yes, there is a cost in confronting these matters, but a greater cost in avoidance.
The Sick Man of Europe is candid—if not provocative. “We eat, we fight, we shit,” he intones in “Profane Not Profound”, which is not lurid in the slightest. Instead, it captures a poetic vulgarity, as if the Sick Man of Europe is taking a lesson from the French Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud. More importantly, it exposes the bestiality of man—a reminder of what lies behind the mask in an age when life seems to be purely operating on the surface level or a digital screen.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: it is a bleak record, one that makes you feel as if you are trapped inside the mind of a narrator who is on the brink of a breakdown due to an unjust society that prioritizes profit and so-called progress over humanity. That leaves him feeling lost and alienated, dispensable and obsolete. Worse still, he transitions from political resistance to apathy to acquiescence.
The synthpop opener, “Obsolete”, is about a character who, due to the rapid pace of modernity, feels irrelevant, leading to him wanting to be put out to pasture: “Retire me, make me obsolete”. Then he begins to recite corporate jargon: “growth” and “progression”. It illustrates how he cannot escape workplace parlance, even if he wanted to. Bad enough? He starts believing in the message: “Progression is inherent, that is that”.
The next track, “Transactional”, is equally disturbing with its idea of transactions physically hooking onto us, complete with stabbing guitars and an unyielding beat. This loss of identity continues onto the third song, “Sanguine”, where the narrator has no control over his speech: “Movements of the mouth, what am I talking about?”Additionally, “Sanguine” is anything but optimistic; the message is made clear by the detached vocals, eerie synth, and brute-force bassline.
The Sick Man of Europe has an arresting, monochrome aesthetic indebted to the post-punk band Bauhaus. However, in the time of hyper-fixation on image and labelling, this aesthetic—enveloped in darkness and thus making it difficult to discern his visage—is political. Effectively, the Sick Man of Europe denudes his image and personality, becoming a vessel of the digital age.
If you have ever wondered how Ian Curtis, backed by Suicide, would have sounded (who hasn’t?), then the Sick Man of Europe is for you. In other words, you will hear a phlegmatic, baritone croon over throbbing, motorik drumbeats and pulsing synths—a cross between post-punk and synthpop. Furthermore, he marries post-Brexit Britain with the post-punk bands of the late 1970s and the early 1980s under Thatcherism. The Sick Man of Europe not only captures the sound of post-punk—angular and jagged electric guitars—but also its malaise, precipitated by a disenfranchisement with the political climate.
The purpose of the album: however much you try to extricate yourself from the modern world—an environment that makes you feel oppressed, estranged, and insignificant—you remain fettered. Musically, this translates into repetitive and minimalistic electropop loops. That is expressed explicitly by the narrator of “Profane Not Profound”, who says he has been here before, an eternal return of endless, fragmented digital information. Moreover, the modern world makes him sick, and therefore, he wants to destroy it to rebuild it.
In “Slow Down, Friend”, The Sick Man of Europe sees beyond the veneer of man, realizing we are a “bag of bones”—a savage beauty. Importantly, “Slow Down, Friend” finds a narrator talking to himself; the point is that the first change within society starts within. There is neither a trace of irony nor black humor to buffer the impact: the record is unrelenting from start to finish. One of the strengths of the album is that the music is not abrasive, especially with its Krautrock influence—specifically Neu!—making the message palatable (in fact, the influence of Neu! is best heard in the instrumental track, “Movement”).
Despite atrophy being at the heart of the album, there seems to be a flicker of hope (or, at least, in terms of the narrator recognizing his humanity) in the last song on the album, “I’m Alive”, an up-tempo number, complete with an infectious beat and synth. In the coda, the Sick Man of Europe sings “I’m alive”, which comes full circle with the chorus of “Transactional”, where he recites “I’m alive, it’s time.” By ending the album on this note, it brings home the message that we are alive and thus have the potential to change, at least ourselves, if not the world.
Sometimes political music seems little more than a self-rewarding exercise. That’s certainly not the case with the Sick Man of Europe, who is far too intellectual and cognizant. As established, he isn’t offering an antidote, solutions, or solidarity. Instead, the Sick Man of Europe highlights the adverse effects of complicity in the digital age, resulting in a Kafkaesque nightmare; this record serves as a clarion call. Ironically, the Sick Man of Europe provides succour—a salvific balm in the technological age.
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