28 Efficax: Dissent, Penance, & Destroy

I mentioned the epic road in my awakebutstillinbed post. One of the most notable things about the eight minute soul cleanser is now it acts as an early and definitive primer on the wider themes of the whole album, and would likely have been the title track had the band not come up with the far more metal album name ‘chaos take the wheel and i am a passenger’. It’s all there: the anxious combination of living the life you’ve always dreamed of while still being dragged down by dejection and doubt, all backdropped by a tour bus hauling itself up highways on the endless cycle of boredom/validation/loss/boredom/validation/loss/boredom/validation/loss…

On what I guess would be the 20th track on ‘Dissent, Penance & Destroy’, my mate Efficax lays out a similar mission statement:

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

You told me,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Find out find out,

You told me,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

You told me,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Fuck around and find out,

Find out, find out.

fvckaround

And around they fuck, with great discoveries being made. They also fuck as well, you know? You get me? Like the songs fuck? Like there are songs here that just law out vinyl sheets to protect the furnishings, squirt baby oil over every surface and just get down to it, yeah? Are you following me? Do I need to draw a diagram? Because you know I will.

Firstly, I fucking hate Efficax, I really do. An absolute arsehole. And you can print that.

Alright, fine, Jesus!!

Also, the resolution of those photos of Shawn are getting lower and lower, aren’t they? Hope he takes a new photo with a computer soon.

Anyway, fuck Efficax, they mess this list up good and proper every flipping year. Last year, I went to the trouble of actually creating my own compilation record of their first three EPs so that I could rank it at #39 and give them credit for their recent stylistic changes… only for her to release her debut album proper eleven days before I started the list!! Thanks a lot, jerk!

Ah well, no biggie. I instead conducted a brilliant interview with Elle Gilliam to mark the release of the album, where they discussed the influences and impetus of the record, and also the impact of their (relatively) recent transition. Oh, and she basically confirmed that she’s an AEW fan. Not directly, but being a wrestling fan is like being a homosexual in the 1960s: you can’t just come out and say it and risk the scorn, ridicule and potential jail time. You have to speak in code, and Elle bringing up Wicca Phase Springs Eternal? I see you. It’s cool, ‘DESTROYER‘ missed the deadline for NE2023 by, like, a couple of weeks, I’d just stick it on this year’s list and…

The fuck is this?? In April, Elle released the ‘penance’ EP. It’s fine, I thought, it’ll just be offshoots and demo experimentations and it will be more of a curio than a prope- oh what the fuck these songs are probably better than most of the songs on ‘DESTROYER’ and this represents a massive musical evolution that needs to be noted fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! ‘penance’ is an incredibly tight 15 minutes of basically spotless music. Sure, Elle was probably just fuckingaroundandfindingout, but they were doing so while always mooring their experimentation to songs strong enough to not be overwhelmed by the sandbox that Elle has placed them into. Efficax handle experimentation not affecting songcraft far better than some albums this year, which I won’t name unless they complain on X formally known as ‘X formally known as Twitter’. Suddenly, ‘DESTROYER’ started to feel and sound so old, the five months between albums now seemed like a decade. OK, ‘penance’, you’re in. I’ve created my own Efficax album before, so tagging you onto the ‘DESTROYER’ album shouldn’t be too difficult to…

Aaaaaaaaw, you motherfucker. In August came ‘dissenter’ (are the full albums all upper case and the EPs lower? That’s pretty dope. That’s pretty sick. That’s pretty gangsta), and – oh lordy-loo – it’s probably Efficax’s best collection of songs yet. I’m tempted to also say it’s Elle Gilliam’s greatest ever work, with only the general disparity of sounds and lack of an obvious artistic throughline paling it slightly next to some of the remarkable cohesion of some of the Helltown records. Stylistically, it’s occasionally all the fucking shop – there’s a reason why fvckaround opens the record – and a few of the tracks sound like they didn’t come from the same person, never mind the same project. But the places that each song goes are spectacular. piggy is a more crisp and well produced take on the ‘standard’ Efficax sound (Helltown Americana fed though and FX meat grinder; fill begins with that template and just keeps expanding and expanding and expanding; and fuckingwant2die?? What the fuck is this?? Like if 100 gecs had an ounce of sincerity and were at all interested in making music that resonated beyond Snapchat meme potential.

been feeling like my shit is getting fucked

dumb luck always coming in clutch

never could walk away from a scene

terrified if im really coming clean

wanna be a bad bitch but im too soft

i can talk a lot of shit sometimes

i want to be held

to be surprised

but im feeling like

shit over my cries

i dont even give a fuck

i cant care enough

to give a shit about myself

to give a shit about my health

fuckingwant2die

Mate, you know that’s my jam.

OK, fine: I’ll do ‘DESTROYER, plus I’ll add a couple of these fascinating EPs because they represent such a stylistic and creative leap from the album that to include the debut record on its own would feel somewhat archaic. I’ll make another Efficax album for the benefit of this list. Hey, Elle, no other artists makes me work this hard, you know?

And so we finally have…

Nope. Mm-mm. Nah nah. This is where I draw the line. This October release marks a time out. I just can’t. Next year, maybe. I’ll include it in the next freaking album I make…🤦

Efficax remains a fantastic artist who I wouldn’t want to damn as ‘one to watch’ considering the quality of the music they’ve already produced. Perhaps they haven’t yet properly landed on a unique and properly distinguishable style for the Efficax project, and the fucking around and finding out might have a shelf life before I really start anxiously wishing they’d pick a lane. I’m also not sure they’ve properly found their voice in a more literal sense: the strong and crisp vocals were such a major strength of Helltown that I’m always wishing a proper translation was searched for. Elle’s vocals pushed high in the mix ala Laura Jane Grace’s recent Dysphoria Hoodie would really underscore these songs’ quality.

Ah, but what do I know, seriously? Elle’s career so far has been a series of successful abrupt turns, and long may it continue. Right now, as previously stated: this fucking around fucks.

2022 #39 (Efficax) 2021 #58, 2020 #73, 2019 #59 (Helltown)

Legit Bosses: 2