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Working the Machine

by Sheeps

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1.
Cuneiforms 00:52
2.
Colour Wars 07:48
Colour wars throw the people off the scent. Poster child for the coming Reich. If we all jump at once will we knock the Earth off its axis? Raise your hand and stroke your hard-on for your double-barrelled steel whore. Burn it down. Tomorrow’s hero bids it so. The villain crows – his toupée fashioned Hitler mode. If we all jump at once will we knock the Earth off its axis? Slumber no more. Open your eyes wide (but not too wide) and decide between the marionette that severed its ties and whoever the fuck this other guy claims to be. This is what you get when you put two and two together. We are all part of the docile ninety-nine. Contents of our voices designed, Smoke in our eyes, and mirrored minds. Reflections of the fortuned ones who occupy our feeble tongues and are in charge of what’s to come; Telling us all to buy a gun. Go out today and buy a gun. Don’t be a part of the docile ninety-nine.
3.
Generation I 05:20
Spreading like a binarial disease; These self-appointed, self-assured solonauts fire mercilessly. Secure within this dark carnival of humanity’s most wretched impulses. Drawing power from the screen. I digress between convulsions. Beneath a veil of obscene characters. A credential list of hacked addresses. A background check outsourced abroad, A thick smokescreen of marred dexterity. We’re generating ‘I! I! I!’s and ‘Me! Me! Me!’s with apples in their eyes, That manufacture ‘Why? Why? Why?’ and ‘Please? Please? Please?’ for a stone tablet devised to be bigger than We. Generation I. A premature display of uniformity with just a password as protection. A stifling of the senses. Subliminal regression. Advertised appeals towards depravity.
4.
A tower built to reach the sky, But denied for use to explore the Heavens. Atop its spire it is said that one may walk upon the air. A spark ignites the core of me and starts my heart. Dark forces do no harm to the enlightened ones. Noises in the dark encircle with intent. Dishonourable men passed with life’s regrets. Apostichal truths spoke in Xenoglossia verse. A turgor pressure burst; A stillborn immaculate birth. One can forget the world they know. One can sink down to the core. You may want more. I’d be careful what you wish for. And never forget why you’re here. Do what you will with the waste and burn what’s left. Wheels tuned to attest a system destined to regress.
5.
Cuneiforms 01:22
6.
Their connections to the cross begin at their feet and extend to their tongues, Bearing likeness to the regimented forming of drones. Don’t you shame the ones that moulded you, that scolded you, That clipped your wings as they unfolded to prevent you flying too high, Then blamed it on the sky, So that you’ll work until you’re old enough to die. False idols of concrete and glass. Training grounds for the working class. Embedded in their bones are sticks and stones. Your life is but a moment in history; A single frame in the cosmic reel. And what will fill your memory? Working the machine.
7.
White noise for the eyes; The next step in the dumbing-down of the ones who really hold the power. Hopelessness voiced from your false platform. Powerless; surfacing distraction. Emptiness while the world is filling. Done with this? Throw it in the ocean. When they reach us, there’ll be nothing left but apple cores and window frames. Baptised in your beauty creams and posted to your podium. Happily consuming like you’re meant to be. The fate of the world is going to the highest bidder. Survival of the fittest when the fittest just get fitter. We’re dancing on the mountain’s edge of yesterday’s trash as we’re trying to forget it. Throw it in the ocean. What’s the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don’t know and I don’t care. The means to portray seeming self-expression as a weapon. Obeying blindly the conditions of this plastic, single-use society.
8.
The strong do not seek God. The weak aren’t so at birth. The meek shall inherit what’s left of the Earth. Place your ear to the ground and keep it there ‘til you hear the sound of the fallen many crying on in vain, in search of Kingdom Come. The voices of the voiceless speak truer than the ramblings on of the lost. Trails in the dust. Plant the seeds in arid lands, Wring out the moisture from your hands, Spend thirty years – eyes-to-the-dirt, Then pretend that failure doesn’t hurt. The crescent moon leads us to the sea and commands that our qualms be buried. A distant star calls us further still, And bids that we fulfil its will.
9.
Cuneiforms 02:05
10.
eGod 08:51
There is a room where I reside; A little comfort on the side; A place to hide away when things get ugly. It doesn’t exist in time or space; There’s no such thing as the human race; All matter has fallen out of place; And DNA cannot be traced in this tomb of mine. No need to put it all in line. No need to weave a thread of time. We’re on the borderline of truth in here. Why’d we have to crash and burn? Little boots ignoring change in motion. Stupid pig-man ruined future fate. The idiotic mustn’t mandate their weakness and ignorance. The particles of life gather in the street, undefeated. I can see them from my little room. They’re smashing windows in the street. The war of laws has started now. They’re chanting a name and stamping their feet, And following a voice toward my tomb.
11.
Something longs to lure me back to sleep. So, naturally, delirium ensues. Tracing lines, untracing lines, retracing lines… Brush strokes becoming unpainted while black ink creeps further up my arms, Expelling indivinity from the page. Soon to burst – my inflated paper head does possess an instinctive gag reflex. Tracing lines, untracing lines, retracing lines… X-ray the ghost. Portray the spirit of the fawn.

about

NZ Art Rock band Sheeps makes a bold debut with their record ‘Working the Machine,’ out this April through AAA Records. Exploring the pitfalls of capitalism, the ever-tightening global technological stranglehold, the electoral illusion of choice, and the prospect of failure after lifelong endeavour, the album is a statement on the modern struggles of the working class in a brave new, damaged era.

‘Working the Machine’ sees Sheeps as champions of the 99% – the down-trodden majority, who keep the world turning, poised moments from revolt – with the band’s sound on the album reflecting this overarching churning continuum on the verge of disintegration. The album draws heavily from late ‘90s Radiohead, early A Perfect Circle, and ‘70s era Pink Floyd, in a conglomeration that stands distinctive in its own right – punching up, with the ambition to transcend the class divide and assert Sheeps as contemporaries amongst these influences.

Right from the first crash of the album’s opener, Colour Wars, it’s evident that Sheeps holds nothing back – pouring everything they’ve got into these songs with an earnestness that is both revealing and engaging. Singer, Dean Blackwell, shoots from the hip on every line – with clear, careful consideration in making sure to say exactly what he means to. Sheeps’ dense wall-of-guitars approach is masterfully showcased in the songs Sandstone Mirrors and Dreaming in Colour, while their contrasting sparse ambience of low rolling thunder shines astride Blackwell’s biggest vocal payoff moment in the build-up and climax of eGod. The album’s lead single, Generation I, sees children eschewing the tenets of the traditional stone tablet in favour of a new, life-defining tablet – one whose access to the entirety of human knowledge is, at best, underutilized. Having won Best Rock Music Video and Best Australian Music Video at the January 2024 Prague International Music Video Awards, Best Low Budget Video at the January 2024 LNDN Music Video Awards, as well as garnering an honorable mention in Season 11 of the Europe Music Video Awards, the song’s themes evidently resonate on a universal scale.

Blackwell reveals that ‘Working the Machine’ was crafted in a personal era of reignition of love and wonderment over the albums that inspired a starry-eyed, head-full-of-dreams teenager, burning with the desire to carry the baton of his musical mentors. Albums like ‘Lateralus,’ ‘Deloused in the Comatorium,’ ‘Dark Side of the Moon,’ ‘Thirteenth Step,’ and ‘In Rainbows’ have their essence slathered generously over ‘Working the Machine,’ as they were the subject matter Blackwell would refer back to whenever he encountered any impasse during the writing of the album. And just like these albums, ‘Working the Machine’ is no mere collection of songs, but an artwork in the form of an album – a start-to-finish endeavour, best-experienced on a good Hi-Fi system in a dimly-lit room.

credits

released April 26, 2024

Engineered and mixed by James Goldsmith except Cuneiforms i, ii, & iii, mixed by Simon Blackwell.
Recorded at Surgery Studio, Wellington, NZ, with some pick ups and extra bits recorded at Matrix Digital, Wellington, NZ
Produced by James Goldsmith and Dean Blackwell.
Mastered by Chris Chetland at Kog Studio.
Artwork by Sean Walker.

Sheeps are:
Thomas Friggens - Drums
Grace Baker - Guitar
Blain Fitzpatrick - Bass Guitar
Simon Blackwell - Guitar
Dean Blackwell - Guitar/Vocals

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Sheeps Wellington, New Zealand

Art Rock for the end times.

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