Steve Makita / Meketa is no stranger to Vital Weekly. I had the pleasure of reviewing several releases by him on the Alpha Morzel label, most recently – just a few months ago – the “Pray Before You Become Prey” album. Since then, I’ve gotten in contact with the man himself, and it turns out he is also doing hardcore in Apartment 213 and doing a very nice job there. He likes to stir things up now and then, and he is not afraid to just be who he is. Because being who you are is also being all you can be. No mask, no fake, just Steve.
Why do I write this? Steve is a born-again Christian who is not afraid to share it in a world where artists still try to shock others with nasty or extreme imagery, visions, or words. The times I’ve thought about why people want to shock others with images of violence or pornographic material. At the same time, their music didn’t connect, or it was connected but didn’t add anything, or it lowered the impact of the sounds because it was simply distracting. And I can’t remember being at a concert where there was the most extreme noise with a simple video of lambs playing in a meadow. Why wouldn’t artists do something like that …
So in this case, Steve spews his words at the audience, telling them about what he is about and what his mind is about. Over layers of noise and power electronics because that’s what he is about. Heavy vocal treatments with feedbacking delays and pulsating atmosphere. Four tracks covering a little over half an hour, sonically hurtful at moments, always truthful in words. I am non-religious myself, and I’ve listened to this release several times now from the perspective of what it does to me. I can only say that the music is very, very nice, though it could be a bit more bassy/low-end for my personal taste. The words and text are heavily treated, so for a non-native English speaker not always easy to follow, but they’re brought to you sincerely and direct. The message I’ve extracted was basically “it has to go bad before it gets better”, and whether it’s God, Jesus or yourself, don’t give up because it will get better. And for an album with music like this, it’s weird to hear such a positive message. But it’s not because the message is weird, it’s because the extremes in the past may have ruined the expectation. Props to Steve and Steve for creating and releasing it.
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