Beef Terminal

Although Toronto's Beef Terminal opt for lonely instrumental ambient landscapes, a voice can still be heard. In lo-fi bliss, the listener is shown a rather sobering depiction of one's disposition, angst, struggle and indifference with a society bent on fast-paced structures and pressures. With all the calculations going on, be it via computers (note the album's title, based on the BASIC computer language) and aural symbolism (the smearing sound similar to a bell stretched throughout the album's many pieces - dictating the pressures of time), the fragile human mind eventually begins to fragment. This is where Beef Terminal comes in. The scattered sounds inherent on the disc are not necessarily "industrial," as one would expect by the "big city life" inspiration, instead they sound calming and organic, as if they were derelict outsiders who wander about observing life, trying their best to take it for what it is. Glimpses of hope and warmth are occasionally caught when maternally rhythmic guitar and beat tracks break through their skies, but at most times the sounds are wonderfully grey. A fine compliment to melancholia, as at least everything cancels out back to ground zero where programmed life can begin yet again. No escape.