Album Spotlight: The Fine Art Of Original Sin by Ink & Dagger

By Ryan Germ
 I’ve been racking my brain for a minute looking for the next album to review. Numerous rough drafts have been started and deleted and put on hold recently and I didn’t really know what to write about until I saw 3 words sprawled out on my Instagram feed posted by the official Ink & Dagger fan page. “Devil children unite”. Those words called to me like it was the PAHC version of the fuckin Bat Signal. Now if you saw my story, you would know that this was supposed to drop sometime on Friday, February 20th. At the time of writing it’s 6:30 pm Sunday the 22nd and this probably won’t even be up until the 23rd (oops). But to be fair to me I’ve been sick as hell in my room passed out for 3 days, so I don’t know what to tell you chief. Well, actually, I do know what to tell you if you’re out of the loop on the almighty Ink & Dagger. Basically guitar vampire Don DeVore and charismatic frontman Sean Patrick McCabe (of Frail and Crud Is A Cult respectively) joined forces in 1995 to unite the Philly punk and hardcore scenes whilst also creating one of the coolest bands in HC history, and here on Shadowtalkers we’re taking a look at their 1999 effort The Fine Art Of Original Sin. So without further ado let’s get into the record.

The record fades into the title track with ominous whispers of “original… sin” before throwing you into weird experimental hardcore with odd rhythm’s and Don’s unique style of guitar. After the first verse it goes into the almost chanty chorus of “I'm well taught/I always win/I'm well-practiced in the fine art of original sin” followed by a sample of what sounds like a tattoo gun over bluesy leads. The second verse is sang over those bluesy leads before some super pounding compressed drums bridge the gap between verse 2 and the bridge which is suited for a pile on. The chorus comes back and Sean sounds like a demon when he screams “The fine art of original sin” and from there the song gets experimental as fuck. Samples are mixed in with the eerie sounding guitar work and then after that segment everything begins to dip out. The eerie guitars are replaced with the underlying driving and groovy bass before that also drops out to treat you with just the drums. Everything kicks back into full gear with the chorus being yelled one last time to end the track.

The next song is a Philadelphia anthem of sorts, it’s none other than what many would consider the standout of this record, Philapsychosis. It kicks off with a ride bell and a dancy beat and riff to pair. The first bar with lyrics continue this fast paced approach before Sean says “you’re so crazy/I couldn’t escape if I wanted to” and the whole song slows and gets super psychedelic out of nowhere whilst retaining its edge. As it just throws you back into that breakdown section after a few seconds of the aforementioned psychedelic ringing out. Don’s guitar work is on another level with this track. The song goes into a dancy fast part again before it slows down again and starts a part building up to something which culminates with this super thick bass drop and snare roll. After that it goes into this kinda jazzy jam band esque type of portion, but it’s not lame like Phish or that shit (sorry to the Phish fans reading this). Sean’s vocals come back over top after a minute to ask “are you down with the sound of this devil town?”. The song slows again before treating you with the iconic line of “my diagnosis/Philadelphia psychosis”. A scaling type of riff follows that up before that itself gets followed up with some more psychedelic notes that finish off the track.

The next song We Lives Despite Their Schemes kicks off with some haunting vocals by Jennifer Layne Park over some subtle bass until it kicks into experimental instrumentation interspersed with spoken word segments from SPM. It keeps going like that for the rest of the song. This is the one track from the record that I normally skip, it’s a tad too experimental for my liking.

The next track Cut Throat Tactics kicks off with a very bluesy type of riff before going into the first verse which seems to be all leads over complex drums before going into a heavily palm muted section. It goes into the chant of “Cut me/Cut you” over some crazy leads and complex drums which come together in a super psychedelic way. The song slows and goes into this pretty bluesy but really hard riff. The song ends on that riff.

The next song is the Six Ft Under Swindle and it begins with an insane riff which is all over the place in the best possible way over top of super driving drums. The track then slows when the vocals come in. There’s this part where it is coming towards a build and it’s done on the hats and the ride bell which is super cool sounding when it’s coupled with the ambiance. It’s finally revealed it was building to a big 2 step part after a minute signaled by a zap sound. After that the song stops and Sean starts laughing maniacally and it goes into this weird breakdown section before going to a 2 step part over a solo. The question “who stole the show from rock n roll” is posed on the lyrics and that’s a line I love. The song seems to end before going into a pretty moshy breakdown to end the track.

The penultimate song that I’ll be covering today (there’s a remix of the title track at the end of the record that I will not cover) is The History In Ectasy and it begins with a stompy drum part and a bluesy riff, which I know I’ve said that a lot but there’s so many of those bluesy riffs in this record. The vocals here are super chanty. The tempo switches to be slower and then there’s this build up on the toms, not quite a side to side, more just a build up, before the main riff comes back with the drums following said riff. It then goes to a 2 step part and then the whole song blends into a wall of sound before the main riff comes back another time except more start and stop. The chorus comes in one last time to end the track.

The final song, Vampire Fast Code Ver 1.5 is probably one of my favorite I&D songs, and sounds more like Atari Teenage Riot than anything. It starts off with electronic drums over one of those bluesy riffs but this time the riff has more stank. The electronic drums drop out for just the riff to shine before the song kicks into full gear with Jenny and Sean singing the refrain of “Vampire Fast Code/Death by download”. The song slows down for a minute tempo wise before coming back hard. The track ends on this sick pile on part where they scream “Break the system” over and over again before the track abruptly ends, capping off the record.