Toronto-based duo Dermabrasion’s debut album runs the gamut from industrialist new wave to punky death rock, while the extremity of the album title—Pain Behaviour—and minimalist gore of its cover invoke the abrasive history of hardcore and vocalist Kat McGouran occasionally channels the doom-metal incantations of Windhand or King Woman. It’s no surprise, then, that the ideological DNA of the record spans a similarly wide gulf among extreme thinkers. In the case of “Psychic Event,” the record’s final single before the full LP gets released tomorrow, the band invokes J.G. Ballard, David Cronenberg (neither of which being references to Crash, curiously), and the French painter Octave Tassaert.
“There’s references to skin, flesh, or body on almost every song on Pain Behaviour, but ‘Psychic Event’ is the fleshiest,” explains McGouran. “A misquote from an adaptation of a Ballard novel provides the name, the intersections of sainthood and suffering provide the meat and bones. Taking inspiration from Videodrome and Tassaert’s painting The Temptation of Saint Hilarion, this song is somewhat of the record’s thesis statement. A meditation on an obsession with the body—one’s own, another’s, positive or negative. The track’s textured tones and slower, more subdued tempo help ensure maximum brooding and ruminating.”
Although slower, the track is still built upon a violently sputtering drum machine and jagged guitar riffs, along with McGouran incanting vocals. Check it out below, and pre-order the record before it drops tomorrow via Hand Drawn Dracula here.
