The Intima Peril & Panic LP reissue
Originally released in 2003, Peril & Panic was the first (and last) full-length recording from early ’00s Portland/Olympia anarcho avant-punks the INTIMA, and as a teenager who was confined to a largely regressive and apolitical scene 2,000 miles away at the time, it’s hard to articulate the ways in which this band and record helped to unfold maps in my mind that ultimately led me to all sorts of new worlds. This new reissue comes with a much-needed remixing and remastering job, giving even more force to the knotted, intricately structured art-sprawl of these nine tracks compared to the thin and murky initial pressing; despite already being deeply familiar with the record, there’s so many nuances here that are only now revealing themselves to me twenty years on. The EX and DOG FACED HERMANS were two frequent compass points used to orient the band’s approach (and not without reason), but it’s impossible to disentangle the INTIMA’s stormy, grey-skied intensity from being the product of anyplace but the Pacific Northwest—think Scrabbling at the Lock, if it had been left in a damp forest of evergreens to be slowly consumed by moss. Desperate shouts deliver pointed lyrics that are more poetic than didactic, focused largely on intertwined threads of ecological collapse and the accelerating wreckage of capitalism and imperialism, squalls of mournful violin collide with angular, alternately tuned guitar jabs, the drumming clanks and rattles with the kinetic rhythms of industrial machinery, and the result is music intended for dancing amongst the broken glass of shattered empire (more now than ever).