Fast, raw, demented DEATH/THRASH/CORE for all lovers of underground noise from the 80's tape-trading era, delivered through a lo-fi yet juicy production, in the best tradition.

FFO: Sodom, Merciless, Schizo, early Necrodeath, early D.R.I., Kreator, Sepultura, Napalm Death, Blood, Nuclear Death, Cerebral Fix, Cryptic Slaughter, Wehrmacht, Incinerator, Sarcófago, Mutilator, Protector, Sadistik Exekution, Nerocapra

TRUE DEGENERATE NOISE

FOR TRUE NOISE MANIAKKS ONLY!

SONIC DEGENERACY - A SENSELESS SELECTION FROM THE INSANE COMPLETE WORK

Type: Full-length

Release date: October 31, 2023

Label: Lunar Light Records / Barbarie DIY Records

Formats: CD, Digital

Catalog ID: LLR003 / BRBR017 (CD edition)

Lineup:

Noise Maniakk - songwriting, rhythm and lead guitars, bass (tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12), lead and backing vocals, curses, blasphemies and exorcism

Guests:

Krost von Barbarie - bass (tracks 5, 9, 10), backing vocals (tracks 9, 10)

Sinistro - additional guitars (track 3), backing vocals (track 9)

Er Magnotta 666 - drums (tracks 2, 3, 5, 9, 12)

Colonel Matt - drums (tracks 1, 4, 11)

Blastator - drums (tracks 8, 10)

Francesco Paladino - drums (tracks 6, 7)

Jan Spasticus - solo (track 12)

Francesca Ortisi - female choir (track 7)

Lo Stronzolo (Noise Maniakk's little brother) - backing vocals (track 4)

All songs written between april 2015 and august 2017.

Recorded in Belpasso and Palermo between october 2017 and august 2020.

Not produced, de-mixed and unmastered by Noise Maniakk.

Artwork by Onìkarus Art.

Barbarie DIY Records

Lunar Light Records

Here are the two parts of the EXTENDED DIGITAL EDITION of "SONIC DEGENERACY" - finally revealing the complete, gargantuan, unfiltered vision of elitist old school lo-fi insanity that Noise Maniakk kept building slowly and patiently since 2015, with the help of many young talents from the sicilian underground metal scene. All of ROTGOD's releases since the first handful of digital singles have been leading up to this massive, undigestible behemoth of a double album.

So many more tracks compared to the CD edition from 2023, coming together like small pieces of a gigantic puzzle to form a schizophrenic, noisy, demented opus that takes all the rawest, craziest, most unhinged elements of late-80's proto-extreme metal (ranging from micro-bursts of spastic hardcore fury to longer intricate riff mazes and unsettling noise/industrial dirges) and turns them up to eleven in a lengthy, boundless, unpredictable, yet kind of artful and cathartic sonic journey, aiming to desecrate any transcendental value and any form of dogmatic morality, not letting anyone off the hook from anti-secular reactionary forces to prudish self-proclaimed modern champions of social justice, from alt-right neofascists and conservatives to smug post-ironic hipsters and condescending wokescolds, from rich boomer politicians to whiny self-deprecating zoomers, from neo-pagan and christian traditionalists to silly new age hippies - mocking and lashing at them all through a cruel, ruthless, borderline sociopathic, yet almost playful take on perverse anti-musical nihilism.

LISTEN AT YOUR OWN RISK.

FFO: Sodom, Merciless, Schizo, Carnivore ("Retaliation" era), Necrodeath (first two albums), early D.R.I., Kreator, Sepultura, S.O.D., M.O.D., Napalm Death, Blood, Modorra, Nuclear Death, Macabre, O.L.D., S.O.B., Unseen Terror, Cerebral Fix, Cryptic Slaughter, Wehrmacht, early Crumbsuckers, Incinerator (Ita), Sarcófago, Mutilator, Protector, Incubus/Opprobrium, Sadistik Exekution, Parabellum, Reencarnación, Nerocapra, The Jesus Lizard, Big Black, early Type O Negative (Repulsion/Subzero era), Andrea Diprè, Bello Figo, Antonio Razzi, Mario Magnotta, and of course the (un)holy masters Richard Benson and Domenico Bini

ROTGOD FULLY SUPPORTS AND ENDORSES ALL FORMS OF MODERN DEGENERACY, INCLUDING: ATHEISM, NIHILISM, INDIVIDUALISM, HEDONISM, CONSUMERISM, PORNOGRAPHY, FORNICATION, SELF-OBJECTIFICATION, DRUGS, BLASPHEMY AND ONLYFANS.

KALI YUGA IS FUCKING DOPE... AND Y'ALL DESERVE TO DIE FOR NOT ENJOYING IT.

SONIC DEGENERACY - VOL. I: CYNICAL HUMANISM

Type: Full-length

Release date: January 21, 2024

Formats: Digital

Lineup:

Noise Maniakk - songwriting, rhythm and lead guitars, bass (tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 14, 15, 17, 18, 21, 24), lead and backing vocals, curses, blasphemies and exorcisms

Guests:

Krost von Barbarie - bass (tracks 5, 9, 11, 12, 13, 16, 19, 20, 22, 25), backing vocals (tracks 7, 19, 22, 24)

Sinistro - additional guitars (tracks 6, 14, 15, 24), backing vocals (tracks 4, 10, 14)

Nfernu - bass (track 23)

Er Magnotta 666 - drums (tracks 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 20, 24)

Colonel Matt - drums (tracks 1, 4, 8, 14, 15, 23)

Blastator - drums (tracks 7, 16, 19, 22, 25)

Francesco Paladino - drums (tracks 17, 21)

Jan Spasticus - solo (track 4)

David Distefano - solo (track 23)

Francesca Ortisi - female choir (track 21)

Lo Stronzolo (Noise Maniakk's little brother) - backing vocals (track 8)

All songs written between april 2015 and august 2017.

Recorded in Belpasso, Palermo and Siracusa between october 2017 and november 2019; some small vocal re-recordings done in february, may and august 2020.

Not produced, de-mixed and unmastered by Noise Maniakk.

Artwork by Onìkarus Art.

SONIC DEGENERACY - VOL. II: PSYCHOTIC CRESCENDO

Type: Full-length

Release date: February 18, 2024

Formats: Digital

Lineup:

Noise Maniakk - songwriting, rhythm and lead guitars, bass (tracks 1, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 23, 24, 25), lead and backing vocals, curses, blasphemies and exorcisms

Guests:

Krost von Barbarie - bass (tracks 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 18, 22), backing vocals (tracks 2, 3, 11)

Sinistro - additional guitars (tracks 10, 14, 15), backing vocals (tracks 2, 4, 22), acoustic guitar (track 21), spoken vocals (track 14)

Nfernu - bass (track 20)

Er Magnotta 666 - drums (tracks 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25)

Colonel Matt - drums (tracks 5, 19, 20)

Blastator - drums (tracks 1, 7, 8, 10, 11, 16, 22)

Francesco Paladino - drums (track 3)

Jan Spasticus - solo (tracks 23, 25)

David Distefano - solo (track 20)

Lo Stronzolo (Noise Maniakk's little brother) - backing vocals (track 3)

All songs written between april 2015 and august 2017.

Recorded in Belpasso, Palermo and Siracusa between october 2017 and november 2019; some small vocal re-recordings done in february, may and august 2020.

Not produced, de-mixed and unmastered by Noise Maniakk.

Artwork by Onìkarus Art.

Noise Maniakk's perspective

An album I had such an urge to make, I almost killed myself to finish it.

I'm not joking: on the contrary, it's so true I would even end up writing a song about that, later on.

At the same time - an album so extreme and excessive in any regard, that an "easy listening" version of it would ultimately be needed... and of course, as it's bound to happen, most people are going to listen to that one version only.

Just to be clear - I have nothing against the CD edition, which to this day keeps selling well (and of course I'm not gonna make a case against my own product haha!): after all, if there's the need to speak of an "easy listening version" even within the context of an unapologetically underground scene, generally used to productions representing the antithesis of "easy listening", it means the product in question must be really, really hard to listen. As a matter of fact, it was a necessary compromise - some sort of intermediate step, if you will - to give better exposure to an otherwise almost undigestible work, save for those select few hardcore noise maniakks hungry for the rawest, sickest, most schizophrenic sounds, who will fearlessly approach the album's extended edition like climbers attempting to conquer the top of Mount Everest.

However, I want to make a point clear: if you're curious to know what my real vision was - the vision that struck me in my teenage years and I worked hard for so many years to make a reality - that's to be found solely in the extended digital edition. The CD edition is a collection of songs I'm extremely proud of - but indeed, it remains "just" that: a collection of songs, therefore an album like many others by definition. I'll try to better explain myself (with no guarantee of succeeding): listening to the CD edition is like skimming through a bunch of pictures taken over the course of a trip, while listening to the extended edition is the equivalent of experiencing the same trip firsthand from beginning to end. Okay, it might turn out to be a trip to some mental institution, but still a trip nonetheless. In that regard, even the songs from the CD edition end up being recontextualized in the extended edition, serving a much wider role and meaning, not just as mere standalone tracks but pieces of a much larger puzzle: dividing the album into chapters was not a casual fancy gimmick, at all.

If I listen back to the full "Sonic degeneracy" album nowadays, it sounds like a "lightning in a bottle" kind of work to me. By this point it's become a bit of a sappy cliché to say - but there are certain records you can make only when driven by naive teenage recklessness and enthusiasm, when you're literally possessed by all the things screaming, punching and twisting inside of you begging to break free, and the eventuality of receiving any feedback by external listeners isn't even remotely on your mind: to put my words into perspective, it's important to remember that while the full record came out only in 2024, I wrote all these songs between 2015 and 2017, when I was 17-19 - pretty much a lifetime ago. "Sonic degeneracy" can be considered in fact a posthumous work, conceived by someone who doesn't exist anymore - a pure, unadulterated portrait of the person I used to be in my late teenage years, in all my unbearable arrogance and smugness coupled with a burning creative spirit. In that regard I must stress that, despite all my reckless euphoria (or perhaps because of it), I was already aware enough of the nature of what I was putting together to know what I had created in the songwriting stage had to be recorded exactly the way I had first envisioned it - without any course correction, refinement or detour from the "script" unless when strictly needed: what I had written, I would record, never losing sight of the foundational idea and overall vision - and the vision in question was that of a gigantic, schizophrenic, all-encompassing stream of consciousness, with songs that needed to be presented in the closest way possible to how I had originally envisioned them in order to give off the bare-bones crudeness and the destructive nihilism which inspired them to begin with. So, depending on the nature of each track, you would find some rather technical and cerebral material ("After the impact", "Jesus Christ pornostar", "Organic machine") placed next to skeletons barely qualifying as "songs" recorded live without much care ("Social media misanthrope", "Bipolar christianity", "I'm so offended / Triggered!"), and everything that comes in between these two extremes. Speaking of which - I don't think I'll be able to reach such levels of nihilistic antimusical deconstruction as I did on "Law against christianity", "Italy is doomed" and "Idealism the fatal bug", ever again. I remember, back when I started writing for what would later become "Polemics and obscenity" (being already well in my 20s by then), feeling crushed at some point by the saddening realization that I had gotten way too "safe" and formulaic in my songwriting - relying too much on paint-by-numbers, conventional "song form" and easy-listening hooks, while losing part of that spontaneous teenage insanity you could hear during "Sonic degeneracy"'s most nihilistic moments. And even though, over time, I think I'm finally managing to get over this perception of staleness I've previously felt in regards to my songwriting - by getting back in touch with some of the primitive, chaotic rawness I once used to possess - I still doubt I'll ever manage to reach such levels of near-improvised sonic nihilism: too many years have passed, I'm not the same person anymore as I stated earlier, and when I listen back to certain passages I can't even remember what the fuck I was thinking when I came up with those ideas. I think, more than a matter of relearning, it would rather be a matter of unlearning altogether.

For most people, though, the real point of contention is the production. Truth is, production on "Sonic degeneracy" does not exist - or to be more specific, there's only POST-production, which is basically just damage control after the deed is done.

At the time, I used a tiny Line 6 guitar amp, which on paper was perfect to replicate the type of ultra-raw distortion I had in mind (using Schizo's "Main frame collapse" as main reference), but something went wrong in the recording: perhaps the amp was not powerful enough, perhaps the mic was not right for the job, I don't know... whatever the reason was, I found myself mixing a heap of guitar tracks that sounded much more flat and anemic than I initially realized, and featured an unbearable amount of high-frequency screeching almost drowning out certain riffs and making them undecipherable. An unreal amount of saturation and surgical EQing was needed to make these guitars at least presentable and around 70-80% close to my vision. I'm just sorry I had to boost low frequencies quite a lot in a desperate attempt to give these guitars more volume and weight, taking a considerable amount of frequency space away from the bass which was therefore penalized in a way not too dissimilar from many plastic modern metal productions I hate.

Tracking drums was a neverending bloodbath as well, always due to the equipment blowing hot and cold each and every time: you never knew which drum sound you'd get each time around, despite always keeping the same mixer settings. Oh, and do you wanna know the best part? Drum recordings, at the time, were monotrack. Yes: the drums you hear on "Sonic degeneracy" were all recorded ON A SINGLE AUDIO TRACK, not splitting the microphones in different tracks to work on separately. Imagine the sweat and the tears, trying to equalize a drumkit that sounds completely different between one song and the other in order to get them as close-sounding as possible, working on a single track without being able to intervene separately on snare and kick for instance. Had the crappy mixer I used at the time allowed me to split the mics onto different tracks (without having to buy yet another sound card), working on the drums and fixing even the potential discrepancies of sound between different songs would've been far easier.

To sum it up, the technical side of "Sonic degeneracy" was such a catastrophic shitshow that I can consider myself more than happy with the final result all things considered, given how hard I have struggled against these audio tracks, mangling them to death to get something resembling the records I've been inspired by. As a matter of fact, being a sucker for extreme lo-fi classics such as "Obsessed by cruelty", "Bride of insect", "Impulse to destroy" or the whole Cogumelo death/thrash roster from the 80s, I can say listening to the album now (with a fresh perspective and without the anxiety of the mixing stage) I hear the songs sitting comfortably within their more-than-raw sonic tissue: of course there's still some annoying amount of useless high screeching (related to both guitar and drums) that I've not been able to cut away completely, and there are a few mixes here and there I'm never ever going to be happy with (I'll forever hate "Italy is doomed" due to how it sounds) - and yet overall I think these recordings, no matter how technically deficient, manage to capture and embody the essence of these songs the way it was meant to be. Honestly, I could never imagine songs like "Sybaritic metal" with the sounds I use today, as clearer and more defined as they could be... plus, if you're on this site reading these paragraphs, I'd guess you feel the same as me about bands re-recording their older albums in order to "revise them" or "update them to the sounds of today". If I ever end up doing the same, you'd be pretty much justified in giving me the John Lennon treatment.

Let's also talk about the tracklist for the extended digital edition, and how the songs are jumbled together - in a way many will no doubt find long-winded, chaotic and convoluted. Time for a big reveal (one that the more observant and clever among you might have already figured out): the album's structure is a perfect cast of my own mind at the time I wrote it. "Sonic degeneracy" is such a huge record - so huge and filled with endless lunatic sparkles and wriggles contrasting each other that it almost ends up crumbling under its own weight - because that's exactly how my brain used to work, back in my teenage years. And that sums up for y'all the musical vision I had constructed (following a process maybe not entirely unconscious, but very instinctive to say the least) starting from the moment I begun discovering all those old thrashcore records with crazy, randomic tracklists - feeling some weird kind of "resonance" with those records, and wanting to expand upon it in a personal manner. I'm not talking about a concept album obviously: each song I wrote for "Sonic degeneracy" (including the shortest, most idiotic skits) stands as its own self-contained story - but it's the placement within the tracklist (oftentimes in stark contrast with the previous/next track) that makes all the difference in regards to the overall insanity and general hysteria getting more and more out of control over the course of the record, until a critical point is reached.

Hence, the conceptual-musical fil rouge underlying the tracklist, as I envisioned it back then. Vol. I (not-so-casually titled "Cynical humanism") bursts forth with fury and determination introducing the album's best-known, most emblematic tracks ("Denial of nature", "Sybaritic metal", "Without dogmas", "Organic machine", "The serpent's speech"...), which work as full-blown manifestos of all my most extreme and nihilistic ideas, and fill for the most part the album's first two chapters "Be proud of being animal" and "Corrupt to the core"; however, during this latter chapter in particular, some cracks in my "determination" start shining through, and a growing sense of hysteria and schizophrenia starts becoming apparent from one song to another, anticipating a crisis that explodes disastrously in the chapter's final song ("Inner crisis" indeed); third chapter "Non accumula ricchesse", after a seemingly calm restart (the acoustic instrumental "Hellish heaven"), doubles down with more wacky oddities (the buffoonery of "Bipolar christianity"), ambiguities, vulnerabilities ("Salomé") and even more growing dread ("Persecution mania"), contrasted by outbursts of fury that sound more and more manic, grotesque and chaotic ("T.W.H.", "Fake news apocalypse"), closing things with long suite "Jesus Christ pornostar" and lightspeed micro-burst "I am the Ka$ta" to seal and cut short any discussion for the time being. However, Vol. II (titled "Psychotic crescendo", yet again not casually at all), inherits the instabilities from Vol. I, opening with the ominous, menacing tone of "Uncertain future"; to said threats and ambiguities, first chapter "My ears are so offended" reacts by going all-in with the manic aggression ("Kill your hipster neighbor", "New age mumbo-jumbo", "Empty idealism") and the crude mockery towards everything and everyone ("I'm so offended / Triggered!", "MeTaL iS dUmB") - but by doing so, we find ourselves treading increasingly stranger, surreal and deconstructive territories ("Slaughtered", "Hell from within", "Torn between two sides") over the course of the not-so-casually titled second chapter "Descent into madness", where existential anguish starts to be recognized more clearly for what it indeed is ("Surrogate"), and moments of more lucid reflection ("Betrayed generation") are contrasted by others of utter senseless nihilistic destruction ("Hipster holocaust", "Law against christianity") in a way that by this point feels more and more schizophrenic and poles apart one from the other; critical point is finally reached with third chapter "Succumb to depravity", where masks of the unconscious slip away once and for all ("And evil smiled at me"), madness becomes self-evident ("Sardonic face"), and time is ripe to give in to the vilest, most destructive instincts ("Obsessed by cruelty") - a catharsis whose importance is emphasized also by an ambiguous acoustic "requiem-style" instrumental piece ("Wandering moon") placed amidst the remains of the slaughter; finally, after yet another outburst against everyone ("This state sucks"), final chapter "Acceptance of the intolerable" opens up with a technical, articulate instrumental ("After the impact") bringing some reflection and elaboration after all the nihilistic deconstruction heard over previous chapters - followed by a track where the lowest end of misery and suffering is finally stared right into and recognized as such ("Reawakened too late"), and then at last the final song ("Jump into the void") representing a vigorous awakening, acceptance and reaffirmation of the convictions expressed at the start of Vol. I, after coming to grips with the "darker sides" of the self and with uncertainty as an inevitable part of existence.

To sum it up: editing the tracklist for this album, and birthing some form of overarching narrative from the anarchic musical chaos I had compiled, was like doing a session of psychoanalysis without even knowing it - also, with the important distinction that writing music is for free, and there are no weird unfalsifiable theories about phalluses and infant incest involved in the process. One thing's for sure - my brain was neurotic as fuck back then, torn between different motives ("torn between two sides"... heh), and this of course reflected in the music I made, which I always considered to be an extention of my own self. Today I think I'm a less "complicated" person with a less convoluted temperament - but if there's one thing I admire about my 19-year old self is that, in spite of everything I had already figured out about the world, I was still able to preserve a fair dose of optimism and "humanistic" sentiment (perhaps of a "cynical" kind, as the title goes, but humanistic nonetheless - pretty much like Al Pacino in "The devil's advocate", not-so-casually mentioned on "The serpent's speech"), to the point of concluding "Sonic degeneracy" with a track like "Jump into the void" which, despite its title, was meant as a highly invigorating, motivational (dare I say almost Nietzschian, minus the Ubermensch/will-to-power/self-help guru blabbering) incitement to face life resolutely. Perhaps that's also why the mood of this album turned out to be more varied and less uniformly embittered/rugged compared to what I did afterwards: of course there are some totally pissed off, hateful-sounding tracks - but there also are some humorous, ironic, satirical, tongue-in-cheek ones in full 80's thrashcore/crossover tradition, and at times the humorous/meme-istic factor ("Englishish", "Hey mr. Schulz", "How to be deep", hell even the "Jesus Christ pornostar" suite) goes to the point of actively molding the music itself, instead of just being added as an afterthought as it was instead the case on "Polemics and obscenity".

So yeah - that's the plot twist we gain from all this wall of text: in spite of all the cynicism and bad taste it wears up on its sleeve, "Sonic degeneracy" is actually the "cheerful", "optimistic" Rotgod album. It's the record I wrote back when I was already seeing some clear threats in front of me, but at the same time I was still able to imagine a future. Such a shame I lost this ability right while I was recording "Sonic degeneracy" - and that's also the reason why the material I wrote in later years is definitely more straightforward and cohesive in its mean-spirited rage: today I'm a less "complicated" person, as I said earlier, because now I'm more pessimistic and tired of everything.

And here comes the sore point: "Sonic degeneracy" has also been a prophetic album in many regards. At least if we keep in mind the time period it was written, despite being released in recent years... therefore coming too late, when all the threats I was talking about have already come true.

Many lyrics from "Sonic degeneracy" make more sense today than they did back when I wrote them. Of course there also are some lyrics here and there that haven't aged very well and can be easily backdated. "Terrorists" (a song that seems to be really popular today, pretty much the album's sleeper hit) was written right after the Bataclan attack in 2015, so of course it's filled with vitriol against the islamic boogeyman that looked so scary at the time - but I'm still very proud of those lyrics due to how they turn the table on the listener's expectations, showing how all three abrahamic religions carry the seed of imperialistic violence within their holy scriptures. Not quite as good is "I'm so offended / Triggered!", which carries all the clichés and memes that were popular to use back in 2016 to mock so-called left-wing SJWs (social justice warriors) - a category I still consider to be very toxic and harmful in its most extreme branches, but honestly even back then they were already starting to be used as yet another boogeyman tactic by people with much more sinister, genuinely concerning political agendas (nowadays, following the evolution of political language, these people identify as "anti-woke" and have straight-out turned into Trump/Musk bootlickers); in this regard, perhaps I should have been more farsighted and clear in my intentions, to separate myself from a bunch of even worse lunatics than the ones I was making fun of. Similarly - lyrics for "Apology of the modern world", read with today's eyes, are definitely confusing due to their candid optimism in portraying a western world with "less conflicts and wars and less misery": well, those lyrics were written and recorded back when we could still legitimately claim we were living in the longest period of peace in recent western history, and I wanted indeed to make an inflammatory statement against a certain kind of reactionary/anti-modernist rhetoric that was already starting to poison the well, even finding high consensus among young people through online proselytism.

And here come the songs I still find to be WAY TOO RELEVANT. Lyrics such as "Uncertain future", "Denial of nature", "I don't believe", "Teleological nonsense", "Fake news apocalypse" and "Betrayed generation" represented my response to a wave of substantially reactionary, anti-enlightenment discontent I was starting to see crawl its way through the ranks of my own generation, emboldened both by frail economic conditions in recent decades (the stock market crash of 2008, caused by uncontrolled financial speculation) and a certain kind of propaganda that was already very efficient back then at breaking people's spirits, convincing many Gen Z-ers (a term rarely heard at the time, but I had already included it in lyrics for "Betrayed generation") that today's world is the lowest point we've ever been as a species, we were actually better off centuries ago (spoiler: not true), nowadays people are way too free to do whatever the fuck they like and that's somehow bad, techno-scientific rationalism is a plague that must be destroyed (hello uncle Ted), and in this climate devoid of certainties we should take refuge in the ancestral security brought by the dogmatic traditions of our ancestors (hence the path divides between hippie new age crap and pagan/christian neofascism - anyway, both are nothing more than farts of the intellect carrying a strong anti-scientific/anti-rationalist sentiment nourished by fake news, "schizo" memes and conspiracy theories). Lyrics for "Betrayed generation" closed on a positive, hopeful note, with a call to action to save our future from the billionaire elite and financial sharks who stole it from us - however, always with the intent of "taking the best of what we have and throwing away the worst", instead of hitting reset button and going back to the past. In this regard, if we analyze "Sonic degeneracy" under a more strictly lyrical lens, the album's inner narrative (starting from the title/artwork, mocking the term "degeneracy" utilized by the alt-right to describe so-called "modern decay") should be read as a long, winding dialectical fight between myself and this "doomer" sentiment that around a decade ago was still pretty much an unspoken thing among people of my generation, but I already was very aware of: in this context, the struggle would be between my "dissolute", "libertine" lifestyle and the above-mentioned form of reactionary dogmatism - all within the context of an increasingly chaotic, neurotic, unstable world - emerging at the end from all this chaos (on "Jump into the void") learning to do without the need for iron-clad certainties and "big narratives" to navigate the world. That's pretty much the album's final takeaway, if I really had to spell one out for you: more precisely, this message is right at the heart of the so-called "cynically optimistic" sentiment that inspired my 2015-2017 era lyrics. Such a shame that 2024 is a bit too late for this kind of talking. Too late, even for me.

Anything that could go wrong since I wrote "Sonic degeneracy" has gone spectacularly wrong, following and exacerbating the concerning tendencies I had seen coming from a long distance.

After a pandemic that took a real toll on us both psychologically and financially (something I had just enough time to briefly touch upon on "Uncertain future", revising the lyrics during the lockdown), we now find ourselves amidst a climate of growing warmongering tension, boosted - go figure - by all those "new" forms of nationalism, in a scenery that looks increasingly similar to early 20th century - well, with the crucial addition of existential-level climate threats no country seems to be genuinely interested in addressing. By this point, "doomerism" has become a cornerstone of Gen Z, fueled by the perception (honestly quite hard to argue against) that everything is indeed going to hell - acting like some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, a hellish self-sustaining downward spiral. This generalized distrust makes it even easier to fall into rabbit holes related to rigid, extreme ideologies, generally averse to nuance and polite discussion - with "short form content" social media adding fuel to the fire of fake news and misinformation, now more widespread than ever via the most immediate, easy-to-digest content format in existence (way beyond the levels I'd imagine while writing "Fake news apocalypse", back in a pre-TikTok world). Everything is hyperpolarized, everything has been made political to fucking hell - and of course, amidst such a highly tribalistic environment, any struggle between right-wing and left-wing has been reduced to a tokenistic, virtue-signaling farce devoid of any real analytical nuance: any matter, any issue, no matter how delicate or complex, will get dumbed down in favor of the same obtuse, black-or-white dogmatism that used to be mainly associated with the religious traditionalists and SJW lunatics I had targeted in "Sonic degeneracy"'s lyrics. Religious sentiment seems to be receiving some kind of rehabilitation amongst younger people - and if not strictly religious, it's at least some shit related to superstition and so-called "spirituality" at large ("New age mumbo-jumbo" and "P.S.S." - two more examples of lyrics that are way more relevant today than they were back when I wrote 'em!). Even puritanism and judgement of other people's sexual conduct (which I did attack on songs such as "Cult of fornication", but I also thought it was destined to wane over time due to generational turnover) has frighteningly gone up among people born since around the year 2000 - with a particular type of vitriolic rhetoric against pornography becoming very popular in recent years, which reminds me a lot of the 90's moral panic against violent videogames and their alleged effects on the psyche. The underlying message is always the same, on any side: modernity is evil and rotten, and we should go back to the alleged "purity" of an ideal world that never really existed, whose specifics vary based on the person you talk to. There was a point in time when this kind of laughable utopian whining, while already worryingly on the rise, wasn't yet so widespread - so to me it could still be fun and rewarding to mercilessly mock and bully said whiners in my lyrics (see: "Empty idealism" or "Apology of the modern world"); now that this has become the default way of thinking for most young people, I'm not having fun anymore: on the contrary - to be honest, I'm pretty fucking sick of everything myself.

I wasn't kidding you at the start, when I said I almost killed myself to finish "Sonic degeneracy".

The numerous misadventures during the years of recording, the various technical difficulties, some musicians leaving the project without warning, the immense amount of work I had to bear (more than I initially thought, since I wasn't originally supposed to record all guitars and bass by myself) - all these things took a toll on me that, coupled with other personal matters such as university and more shit that was draining me at the time, led me to a massive breakdown and burnout that lasted many years, of which I'm still suffering the consequences. It's a topic I would later address on the song "Total burnout (taste of Thanatos)" - one of the few I've written during those years, since my inspiration to write was also at an all-time low back then: generally speaking, my energy and motivation were nonexistent - and while today I feel better since then, being much more proactive and inspired (in music and life alike), I still cannot really say I have totally gotten over this feeling of general exhaustion - a feeling further strengthened by seeing how the world has regressed over the last decade and keeps regressing at a faster and faster pace, talking to my peers and younger kids while oftentimes feeling like I'm talking to some fucking prudish, bigoted, easily gullible boomers, and following reluctantly and passively the recent political developments worldwide, which have now entered a clownishly surrealistic downward spiral. But that's okay I guess: if people have reclaimed the right to be shit and even be said their shit doesn't stink, then by virtue of democracy we have to grant them that right. If so-called "modern degeneracy" disgusted them so much, and they preferred to indulge in something infinitely more ghastly and nauseating, let them wallow in their wretchedness and we'll see if they really enjoy it. Those who used to whine about living in a "dystopia" are, generally speaking, the ones who have caused dystopia to truly come.

However, the thing I'm most bitter about is that "Sonic degeneracy" has turned out to be prophetic even for myself, in the worst way possible: exhaustion and disillusionment have led me to totally give in to my most destructive, misanthropic urges - those very urges that in "Sonic degeneracy" were only presented as parts of a bigger narrative, and were supposed to be overcome in the finale. Well - I can tell you for a fact that the optimism of "Jump into the void" is completely dead and gone by now, and today I make music inspired solely and exclusively by hatred, with no counterpoint nor any possibly constructive message anymore. I always struggled to deal with people in general, but these days I feel particularly fed up with all their bullshit.

I'm sure some people will enjoy the more decidedly "misanthropic" direction Rotgod is taking post-"Sonic degeneracy" - with the humorous/ironic/crossover component being pushed more and more to the side, a more consistently pissed off feeling overall, and simpler, less convoluted releases: however, being well aware of the "first album is often the best" axiom (Kreator, Whiplash, Exodus, Annihilator, Metallica, Testament, Carcass, Napalm Death, Bolt Thrower, Dark Funeral, Mortician... the list could go on), I can't help but remain amazed every time I come back to this record, witnessing the inspiration and willpower I oozed from every pore in my late teenage years, being filled to the brim with extreme ideas and things to get out of my system (both musically and lyrically) in the most unfiltered manner possible, with no compromises nor concessions made towards the general audience, listening to none but my own personal instinctive vision of how an underground metal/punk/noise record was supposed to sound - and if the rest of the world didn't agree, too bad for them. I wish for all young kids carrying a similarly unpopular artistic vision (dare I say even "anti-populist"? "Elitist"?) to be possessed with the same type of "arrogance" and "pigheadedness" I used to have at the time, in order to express said vision without fear, as long as there's still time left and teenage impetus is still strong within them, before so-called "maturity" sets in to polish things up and cut the wacky shit out: speaking personally, most of the art I'm interested in is built exactly on that kind of supposedly "immature" weirdness and wackiness, and the rest tends to bore me.

Perhaps it makes sense that, after writing "Sonic degeneracy" and during the years I was recording it, I've had so little inspiration to write new material: I had literally poured my heart and soul into this record, with such beautiful honesty and vulnerability that afterwards I felt like I literally had nothing more to say, at least for a few years.

It was the utter and total catharsis my teenage self needed, at the cost of draining my adult self.

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