Sophia – Death, dumb and blind

Ho ho ho, Sophia stays productive! When Peter Petterson was only active in Arcana, fans had to wait with patience for the next release. Sophia though has brought us 2 cd’s, the 10″ ‘Aus der Welt’ and now this new ‘Xmas-single’ within a year. Furthermore Petterson also started the new project Victoria, and a new Arcana album is expected for the beginning of 2002.
I bought this single at the concert from Sophia in Delft, where fellow Swedes Sephiroth and Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio also played live. That evening I was rather surprised by the show from Sophia, because it differed totally from what I had seen at a previous concert from Sophia. Then there were two men on stage, doing nothing (except for drinking beer) than beating hard and merciless at metal plates. This time around Peter was assisted by a female companion, and there was no live percussion this time, the focus lay on singing, whereas all previous releases were instrumental!
This single is first of all striking through the artwork: on the cover Santa Claus is depicted, promoting ‘Sophia cigarettes’: “Merry Christmas for every smoker!”. The single itself is a picture disc that also shows ironic commercial pictures, with a lady who is not afraid of her ‘false teeth smile’. Added to the single is an insert sheet with a photo from Peter live on stage, and a lyric for the title track. The single from Victoria already showed a gloomy world view, and this time it is not much better: “I see the blind leading the blind / without a clue to what they will find / I see the bored killing the bored / death, dumb and blind is what’s in store’.
Well, this text fits perfectly in with the music, which is a lot harsher than on previous Sophia releases. All atmospheric parts that reminded me of Arcana are gone, the two tracks on this single are very noisy and militant, especially the title track has a dense wall of sound, with samples and ‘shouting’ on top of it. The song ‘Watching it drown’ gives you a little bit more air to breathe, it is a convincing militant industrial hymn, that for some reason sounds more powerful than what most competitors in the same genre produce. Hurry up if you’d like to have this cosy single in your Christmas stocking, because I don’t think there are many copies left…