Endon: Through the Mirror
It’s hard not to be angry.
I’m reading William Least Heat Moon’s Blue Highways, an influential work of travel American literature that follows its author’s odyssey into America’s back roads. At the halfway mark, Heat-Moon ends up South by Southwest, hauling his truckload of problems into the sun-baked frying pan of the Arizona/New Mexico Plateau.
“The immensity of the sky and desert, their vast absence, reduced me. It was as if I were evaporating, and it was calming and cleansing to be absorbed by that vacancy.”
Heat Moon observes the deserts of the American South West as a vast scarcity, a refreshing nowhere-to-hide honesty whose plains drone into the warmth of an orange sunset. He’s disembodied, a man at once reduced and expanded within and across the vastness of of the land. “Oh to appreciate space!”
Endon’s Through the Mirror opens with a grating electric soundscape. Harsh noise distends and contorts over a five minute duration, enveloping the listener in its heightened sense of emotional desperation. This opener, entitled Nerve Rain, is a brittle, searing shot of fury with every note. The introduction serves to establish the album’s tone, it’s violently unhinged and bristling with fury. The abrasive electronic repetition is also a rite of passage — the music is vast and droning. It absorbs.
A smooth transition into the first proper track kicks off Endon’s intense blend of black metal, hardcore, and harsh electronics— what the band aptly calls a “noise symphony”. Blistering tremolos and rollicking d-beats are aplenty, but what’s so striking about Endon’s style is the sheer intensity of the performance. The crescendos never soar freely like the emotional highs of a Krallice or Deafheaven record. Endon’s music is in constant turmoil, producing tremolo beautiful melodies chained down by crushing punk d-beats; and these change-ups frequently occur within the span of several seconds. It all feels like excess, the album’s hinges barely containing Endon’s wild noise and rage.
Kurt Ballou’s dense production ensures every moment has suitable body and crispness. Snares resound with that satisfying GodCity crack while the guitars thrum with a hefty low end. The mix is similar to the most chaotic moments on an early Converge record, but Through the Mirror’s sonic texture is considerably more abrasive. Think hard shards of broken glass.
Oh to appreciate catharsis. The music overwhelms the listener with shrill guitars layered with ear piercing screams, always one more than there reasonably should be. These moments, notably on Pensum and Postsex, singularize anger; they make the body tremble with presence. If metal is body music, than Endon is a somatic poetry. But the effect is at once thrilling and exhausting; it doesn’t take long for the music’s unrestrained volume to become bludgeoning.
Through the Mirror is staggeringly punishing in short bursts, but its intensity straddles the line between mesmerizing and wearisome over its entire duration. Song lengths range anywhere from three minute sprints to marathons triple that length. The album might be best approached as a collection of singularly intense moments; just skip to the heaviest songs, the hardest breakdowns.
Catharsis is important in my life. It’s hard not to be angry as a visibly trans women, so I need to exfoliate the discomfort of public appearance, the accumulated frustration of harassment, and constant reminders of social hatred.
Listening to Through the Mirror like anger candy is addictive and momentarily satisfying, though hollow in substance. The sheer extremity of the vocal performance and dense instrumentation is conducive to this listening style, but the approach disregards the album’s own cogent narrative structure.
While appreciating Through the Mirror on its own terms is a challenge, especially when the alternative is so appealing, the experience is worth it. Endon’s assault is lengthy and harrowing, spreading the music’s visceral catharsis to its absolute breaking point. The noise desert is vast and caustic, but try to stay awhile, at least once. The album’s full scope affords insight into the Endon’s subtle use of dynamics, their ebb and flow of tension and release. You’ll start to see beauty in amidst the maelstrom, the peaks and valleys of harsh noise coalesce into a something rough and majestic. Even when the album’s last third dials back the intensity, the absence of noise creates a sense of shock for the listener. The sudden consonance is magnetic, and like basking in the sweltering American Southwest, the album’s vastness transforms an initial singular catharsis into meditative disembodiment.
