AMG Review of Pleasure Ground

Ned Raggett
All Music Guide

Pleasure Ground begins with a high-pitched electronic screech that could probably be used to call for dogs if it were any higher, and whether or not one lasts past the first ten seconds of that will determine if Prurient's latest album will be of interest. Recorded by Prurient (aka Dominick Fernow) in a Valentine's Day 2006 session, Pleasure Ground isn't exactly Songs for Swingin' Lovers!, but issues of love, lust, and life are the lyrical core of the album, as decipherable thanks to the abbreviated lyric sheet. Fernow's agonized screams on the opening "Military Road" give the song some shape once a scraggly rhythm counterpoint appears to vary the initial wail. "Outdoorsman/Indestructible" works the opposite extreme of distant, looming tones and echoed, spoken words -- though completely different from Prurient's usual approach, it's no less unsettling for that. "Apple Tree Victim" makes for a strikingly melancholy conclusion, the three-note descending melody via feedback squall sounding an endlessly sad sunset, while Fernow howls a blunt, harsh lyric touching on, quite literally, sex and death. Perhaps the most surprising song in context is "Earthworks/Buried in Secret," thanks to the sudden, strikingly beautiful guitar (perhaps) loop that swirls through the background of the more expected combination of vocal extremity and fuzz. It's a lovely counterpoint to the anger and on-the-edge feeling of the album as a whole, and the contrast works wonders.