Two Lone Swordsmen

Big Silver Shining Motor of Sin EP

(Warp; 2004)

By Evan Goldfried | 20 November 2007

I am dressed head to toe in black leather. My boots gleam from the layers of polish applied daily; its buckles catch the few streetlights that are still working where I roam. Cold doesn’t affect me and I don’t sweat. I wear my sunglasses at night. I never button my overcoat, it catches the wind and slaps whoever is behind me. My hand has rings on each finger; I have a dragon on my thumb. My hair is platinum blonde and I will not tell you if it is natural.

I’m walking on a block that smells like a dumpster fire in the middle of a slaughterhouse. I light my cigarette without missing a stride. I am hungry, but I will not eat. I have only a few deutchmarks left in my pocket, and I need them for Two Lone Swordsmen’s new EP, Big Silver Shining Motor of Sin. I walk into the record store with my lover on my arm. She does not speak and her nails are severely red. I buy the record and I do not say thank you. I am happy.

I loved their prior full length From the Double Gone Chapel. I have a small window in my seven-foot studio, and I look out at smokestacks all day, while smoking. And I put on From the Double Gone Chapel, and I dance in place, arms rigid at my sides. I continue to smoke. I enjoy the sparse use of instruments, the bass heavy drone, the vicious drums. It is sinister, it is repetitious and it is rhythmic. I look at the factories outside, and I can imagine them dancing. Their legs are skinny and my room shakes. I dance with them.

Then I put on Big Silver Shining Motor of Sin. Why did they make this EP? It has only two new songs, “Showbizz Shotguns” and “Feast.” They have none of the malice as From the Double Gone Chapel. It is stripped of everything that made Chaple so alien and bleak. It exchanges personality for a hammish groove. They sound as though Two Lone Swordsmen were trying to copy... Two Lone Swordsmen. And a very petulant Daft Punk. I feel as though my room is the rave scene in The Matrix Revolutions, only everyone is wearing iron crosses. I am further confused, as the necessity of the remixes escapes me as well; they are hardly different, save for a few clicks and buzzes here and there. My tallow face droops with disappointment.

It’s a week later and I am minutes away from the Autobahn; my Mercedes begs for speed. My shirt is unclean, and I have not shaven. I still have Big Silver Shining Motor of Sin in my CD player, and I wonder why as I tear past girly men in their VW’s. I ask my friend, “Gunter, why am I bobbing my head right now?” And Gunter says, “This is not great, but not terrible. It is tolerable, but nothing noteworthy. We shall listen, and call this a transitional EP between albums. Now drive faster-we must go to the club.” And we drove, and talked of that which is beautiful, and the frailty of life. And smoked.