FERENTINO/TRANSFUSION M PRESENTS SLAUGHTERHOUSE 25

Michael Ferentino, per Transfusion M, has achieved additional greatness with Slaughterhouse 25, an album in which his vocals, lyrics and melodies create a Vonnegut, Orwell, Huxley, McGoohan homage that reflects the schizoid side of the modern world.

The opening track epitomizes what's in store. "Slaugtherhouse 25" is a carny, merry-go-round cherry-topping for a dirty, dystopic cake. It's being forced to one's knees at midnight, only to emerge in the New World Order by dawn. In this sinister sector, "Big Brother's got you covered," since you're now part of a cool, conforming team: not bad if you're content being a cog in the timeless "Meat Machine."  

And I must say, "Meat Machine" offers lots of strife. The fleshy spool is ragged and cruel, an aberration that renders one a cultural tool, deposited in a system that's suited for either despot or fool.  

"The System" is a harsh region, packed of despair and constriction, a slower track that laments one's insecurity through the corridors of restriction. In this nasty niche, the meaning of words--the heart of perception--is misconstrued, demanding an interchanger (a shift back to something sincere), but change is never feasible when "sanity has taken the last train" to a country where ignoble zombies reign.  

One yearns for validation, and with this, "Aristotle" comes to mind. It's a serenading stream about the titular legend (joined by Socrates and Plato), in which you drink the poison of truth to pull away the omniscient sky. However, as you identify your captors, you realize that one wants this, the other that, and yet another desires the entire pie, and from this builds your lifelong lie. 

That's because you're a mere part of "The Human Experiment," which, after all the toil and tears, turns out a failure. It's a ramming, Neil Hefti rush that paints a bleak world, leaving you to burn like a witch, persecuted for no other reason than you're you. 

To heal your blisters, you accept a "Sugar Slow Suicide," consuming the sweet, "candy cream and apple pie" nothingness, plucked from an ambrosia/jelly-roll menu that hints at an afterlife, or at least a base where pain doesn't resonate.

What's the point, though, when "There's No Tomorrow At All"? You're now a sitting duck, waiting for that final blow. The morose notes create a death march, swept by an cheerful strum, commemorating all the useless martyrs, along with their useless schemes. 

And any scheme is but a "Fish with a Paper Asshole", the album's shortest track and perhaps its most sarcastic. It wiggles and jiggles as Ferentino raps of "a paper marionette," and isn't that what you've become for subscribing to the system?

"Miserable Window" is the album's heart-wrenching conclusion and its most profound portal. It captures loneliness, of staring at the wall, finding the courage to seek help, but getting none at all. It pulls from Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On", but in the placebo-bound nightmare, the muddled outcome grows clear. This Brave New World is anything but, thanks to its grave conviction. It's at best and most lined with vapid memes that form a major "shit show" for a "Mad Hatter society," designed for all the "dimwit assholes," and you are one, refusing to snuff the lights, allowing your mind to shift from left to right; and when the carnage ends, you're still at the start of the bend. It's no surprise, for as much as you screamed against the machine, you're the one who wrote it.

Slaughterhouse 25 recognizes the inalienable right to see beyond life's murky veil. It's sometimes rough and sometimes smooth, a diverse wake-up call for all who've shed their fight to be free. 

Listen and identify at 

https://orcd.co/transmsh25 

TRANSFUSION M & MICHAEL FERENTINO: I WILL SKILL AGAIN (A FUNK-A-GLAM REVIVAL)

Transfusion M & Michael Ferentino have attained the extraordinary, reaching into the past to influence the present and future, with a neo-soul/semi-glam, intrinsic celebration from Dada Drumming, entitled, I Will Skill Again.  

I reviewed two tracks from the digital album in August, "Sly Heart" and "Revenge of Sly Heart" and described the singles as cinematic, 1970s funk, the sort of compositions that might accompanying Super Fly, Shaft ... Three the Hard Way, but upon deeper assessment, with a heavy, steamy undercurrent that borders on X-rated.

In this respect, much of the album adheres to that bawdy path, in particular "Three," which feels like a "Revenge of ... " epilogue, slipping into sweaty sheets and culminating in a slow, orgasmic bang. 

Otherwise, there's some deviation throughout, as in the title track, "I Will Skill Again," which epitomizes the album's regal, retro aura in what becomes a sociological, if not psychological latch. For this track, Ferentino (in a voice that's smooth yet anguished) channels Marvin Gaye through a Whovian verve, questioning the status quo, while hoping to turn it all around in a scorching spread of wildfire. 

"The End of Us" is the arguable, glam rebuttal (if, in fact, Snake Plissken and/or The Duke of New York wrote glam), where Ferentino beats a enforced dead horse, threatening to toss his concerns or in the very least, shuffle them into glitzy, noncommittal pieces, asking to be ignored, even as he demands to be heard. 

The same can be said of "Sick," which takes Ferentino's groovy lament to a more specialized sector. In this instance, he "blues" it up, informing a significant other that their relationship has crashed. All he wants is release, and like dear ol' Engelbert Humperdinck, pleads for it, though filtered via high-pitched, Prince Nelson redesign. 

Unlike "Sick," "Dramatic" kicks the unrest with a buoyant, fuck-off finality. It's hip-hop-ish, rappy and full of reverberating scorn, while acknowledging what really matters: great songs and the great artists who've composed them. Music is the only anecdote for daily woe, Ferentino explains, with enough impact to exorcise propagandist demons.

"Uncertainty" comes despite this honorable defense. Ferentino is at his most forlorn here, forging a percussive, Bowie-seque/Love in Reverse ambiance that takes the pessimism to taunting, accusatory levels. This is an anthem for every outcast who's ever been crushed by the system. It's a place where one is encouraged to win, even though one has long lost.  

Thankfully, "Delicate" balances the despondency, being fun for hipness' sake. In truth, it's a breakdancing pause, a time for taking it easy, to kiss delicate lips, despite the chance of some possible, supernatural, succubus threat. In other words, though the sky may fall, one should enjoy the moment before one's hit. 

"Newl" plays this sentiment from the opposite end, the type of track that Angelo Badalamenti may have penned for an urban Twin Peaks: peaceful and nocturnal on the surface, but beneath, menacing enough to summon crack-house/crimewave calamity.

As that calamity intrudes, there's "Slide," a cool, but creepy-crawly resignation that, if only tweaked, could be another "Three." The drawl is tougher, though, and in that toughness, the request for forgiveness spreads, shaken by unappeased, street-smart pronouncements.

And the final pronouncement constitutes unmitigated success. I Will Skill Again is wise, weathered and starry-eyed, snapped by a transcendental, Transfusion devisor, and though his fingerprints are all over it, it's unlike anything else Ferentino has rendered: an ingenious upgrade of old-school styles that tells even the most jaded to boogey forth. 

Try the transfusing, retro-jive at 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kmvQilrpAKBK5vWvGdKwlokz0pqckQ5TE