I don’t even know how to do this anymore. I thought
Fire-Toolz peaked last year with Field
Whispers (Into the Crystal Palace), which I gave a glowingly weird (or
weirdly glowing) review to over at Tiny Mix Tapes (RIP). But now there’s Rainbow Bridge, and my world has been
turned upside down. And by that I mean it’s been turned upside down again, because that’s just my reaction
to the work of Angel Marcloid, the mastermind behind the Fire-Toolz brand. I
get turned upside down – and twisted, and inverted, and turned inside out –
anytime I’ve got a new Fire-Toolz thingy to listen to.
Rainbow Bridge
is so fast and so loud and so confrontational and so crisp and so clean,
all at the same time. I don’t know how Marcloid got the idea to smash easy
listening and death metal together, but she pulls it off so well that it has
become its own institution throughout the years. In fact, Marcloid is the ONLY
one who pulls this off, there is none like her. She even adds elements of jazz
and pop here and there, and the result is a prog-metal masterpiece.
Have I called this a masterpiece yet? I’ll have to
go back through and check before I post this.
Thematically, Rainbow
Bridge connects us to the afterlife, serving as a conduit for, here, feline
companions, specifically Marcloid’s beloved cat Breakfast. The album is an ode
to life and love and loss, and it’s shot through with primal intensity and
introspective sadness, sometimes curdling at once in the same container, at
others splattering outward in all directions, and at even others standing
separately and looking at each other from across a crowded gymnasium before
doing whatever it is whatever I’m talking about feels like. And when the breakneck
pace slackens, when the whiplash induced from changes-on-a-dime recedes,
there’s “{Screamographic Memory}” to guide us into that light, guide us across
that bridge into the cosmic fireworks. That memory of those who pass doesn’t
fade, friends.
This is basically just a gush session. I’m knocked
on my ass by Rainbow Bridge. Get
knocked on yours as well.
--Ryan
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