Freaking Out

Revulsion contains its own peculiar, manic energy: that throbbing pre-puke heat, feverish flu stupor, the crushing panic that descends as it becomes apparent how helpless you really are. Not madness, but the potential for madness. “Rejection” pulsates with this heaving, haywire menace, this upended brutalist cornucopia, this ipecac-saturated ick. Machinery thrums. The air distends. Bolts of raw distortion bore through bedrock. Every time voices surface in the mix—the voices, if they’re there, of the damned—“Rejection” is ready with some bold new hand to play, some triple-cramping waveform or teeth-grinding feedback. The logic here determined to repel, it’s designed to repel before the listener’s ear is able to acclimatize to any single already-contentious component, like a bully who’d much rather shove you across a schoolyard than beat you up or swipe your Fugazi cassette. This week, “Rejection” sounds the way many tuned-in Americans feel.