Bestial Burden [LP]

On her Sacred Bones debut, Pharmakon's Margaret Chardiet seemed hell-bent on alienating listeners from the structures they held near and dear with an album of anguished, mechanized violence. Taking her sound in an altogether more visceral direction, the noise architect returns with Bestial Burden, an album that explores the tumultuous betrayal felt at having one's own body turn against them. Written while recovering from a major surgery that kept her from embarking on her first European tour, the album brilliantly exposes listeners to the feelings of rage and fear Chardiet experienced while doing battle with an internal saboteur she was powerless to escape. Using a harsher and grimier sonic palette, Bestial Burden replaced the cruel, unflinching machinations of her previous album with a more hostile and confrontational vibe that prefers to get right in the listener's face than ominously stalk them from afar. In fact, the album is at its most gut-wrenching when it puts the humanity behi