Basque - Pain Without Hope of Healing
Darknight
No Funeral Records
Pain Without Hope of Healing by Basque is not exactly an album spreading jolly holiday cheer. Instead, it offers a challenging but invigorating experience, with an undercurrent of energy pulsating through its layers of noise.
The opening track, “Nausea,” introduces a balance between chaos and structure that’s felt across the entire album. It begins with smooth, almost polished textures, only to let noise gradually seep through. Vocals eventually take over, delivering the line “Escape is in my system,” which captures the album’s overarching themes of internal turmoil and resilience.
The opening riff of “Worry About Everything” sets off rhythmically with a high-pitched riff coming in like a thought you can’t get out of your head, in accordance with the opening line, “I heard but I didn't listen.” The track addresses feelings of inadequacy and alienation; less worry about problems than worry about being a problem. However, this stance also implies one’s power to have impact and to ignite the spark of change.
At just under 6 minutes, the culmination, “Funeral for a Mouse” is by far the longest song, featuring multiple distinct sections, almost a mini, noisy Bohemian Rhapsody. The line “The garden is full of weeds, I still think it's beautiful” as a kind of “open your eyes, look up to the skies…” parallel.
In blending raw noise with careful structure, Basque crafts an album that refuses easy categorization—an ambitious and defiant statement from a genre often content to rebel without restraint.
