As much as this idea totally whips, sadly, Sworn Virgins isn’t a concept album centred around the priestesses of Vesta, although it did inspire me to draft a fantasy longlist of musicians I’d like to see approach such a project.* As the very first record released in 2016’s tranche of Ipecac Recordings digital albums, it sounded the official death knell for entirely-solo ORL material. The Mars Volta wiki page for this album notes that: “Sworn Virgins was one of the last solo albums he [ORL] recorded before deciding that he ‘wanted to dedicate my time, while I’m still here, to collaborating with people and being a part of something and sharing things’.”

This pure-solo swan-song album is made up of material not reworked or mixed from earlier work, so the album launches the series with entirely new songs, although some tracks contain a few rare samples: “Crow’s Feet” / “Heart Mistakes” manipulates a lyric from John Lennon’s “How Do You Sleep?” and “Saturine” samples Invisible**’s “Durazno Sangrando”.

Although Sworn Virgins was composed on his tod, as is the case apart from a handful of albums, it does feature other studio musicians: Deantoni Parks on drums, keyboards and sampling and ORL credited with vocals, guitars and synthesisers/loops. I’m also reasonably certain that’s Teri Gender Bender I hear on some uncredited backup/duet vocals.

Maybe it’s because of the fact of its being the first release that I found so many reviews. I remember those days, and I was pumped for the fact that every two weeks another delicious album dropped. So the many contemporaneous reviews were fairly united in their often breathless praise: The Quietus noted “The record is high on staccato and pizzicato, closed-loops and the power of repetition, employing tension and release to superb effect”, while Smells Like Infinite Sadness described it as a “dizzying, elastic and eclectic release from a musician who has always defied easy categorization”. Louder Soundwas a bit more subdued, summing it up as “jarring, challenging and intriguing, sometimes disturbing and sometimes joyful. It’s certainly never boring”, and fan review stalwarts Prog Archives’ enthusiastic comments from Kempoid praise “…the song structures and abundance of hooks make for a very memorable and digestible listen that makes this one of the better places to jump into to start out.”

“Pineapple Face” / “Not Even Toad Loves You” is both a delightfully surreal burn and an excellent opening track. Fellow Volta expert and human par excellence Glynnis describes it as ‘like the Red Hot Chili Peppers as performed by ORL’. The first part is a short, sharp shock of precision-stabbed notes and intense loops paired with pitched-up vocals. Vocal distortion is not a huge favourite of mine except when deployed to intensify emotional impact, and this is a rare example where I feel it’s perfect. The raw, inchoate rage is palpable, and while the vocals gradually downpitch to his normal levels around the first f-bomb, ripples of this borderline-piercing energy remain. The second part ushered in with TGB’s uncredited backup vocals is a gorgeous textual juxtaposition: her creamy assertion “the fact that they don’t like you / and keep it secret / makes me your one true friend” contrasts with ORL’s frankly unhinged-sounding, repeated snarl “your life’s your punishment”. It’s really hard not to filter these lyrics through the subtweets and sideswipes that accompanied the breakup of the Mars Volta, but that story had a happy ending, at least.

The video, which was directed by ORL, is a fantastic visual of this meltdown. It opens with a pretty standard black and white video in which ORL appears in what looks like Bobbles Dilbo’s pretty era cosplay while Deantoni patiently noodles by his side. But as the video glitches and cracks, and graffiti-like scrawls increasingly take over and eventually splinter into sharp fractals, both men are totally obscured. It’s one of my favourite videos.

I’m less enamoured with the video for “To Kill a Chi Chi”, which combines body horror with food grossness. Both suit the scatological lyrics, but I can’t recommend it, which is a shame because the track itself is a polished gemstone of a Deantoni-driven banger. This description can be applied to most of Sworn Virgins: “High Water Hell” balances the heaviness of the continued vocal distortion with TGB’s countering vocals. “Saturine” slides an amuse-bouche into this tight 35-minute album before the next split track “Crow’s Feet” / “Heart Mistakes” leans hard on paranoid loops and lyrical trickery. “Logged Into Bliss” throws a seventies hard rock vibe into the mix with its crunchy guitar fun and judicious use of layering.

So far, so fun, but it’s “Trick Harpoon Stare of Baby” (*chef’s kiss*) that elevates all those elements. The magic of an ORL/TGB debut, plus the genius of Deantoni Parks delivers something between power pop and postpunk. Synth-rock loops, crunchy shred and a sick, thick beat are the apex of Sworn Virgins. Although less overtly aggressive, the sense of indignation is clear while never seeming illogical. It also serves as a kind of emotional codebreaker for the rest of the album, with all the best elements felt across the piece contained in less than four minutes.

The final split track “Fortuna” / “Twice a Plague” concludes the album on the opposite emotional side from the start. The shift from spitting feathers fury through rumination and snarly takedowns to inverting the motifs towards a more stripped-down sound without sacrificing any complexity and producing a tremendous intensity, like Jack and Meg back in the day.

I find it very interesting that this is considered the last solo ORL album when so much of its success is due to Deantoni Parks and Teri Gender Bender. Any ORL joint featuring the two of them is guaranteed to deliver a tight collection of hard-hitting tunes, and in this respect, Sworn Virgins does not disappoint. I’ll always prefer a clearer vocal mix to aggressive distortion, but when deployed well, as here, it complements the emotional drive.

I’ve said a few times that to every season there is an ORL, and if that season happens to be combative and rage-dumpy, you’re in for a treat. I’ve found that Sworn Virgins is an excellent lunchtime angry stomp-walk soundtrack for the days when a constant stream of doublespeak sends me frothing, when my best intentions are deliberately misconstrued, whenever I’m viewed as the lowest rung to kick in order to deliver someone having a shitty day with a wee blast of cruelty-driven serotonin. Music can’t cure any of this, but it does help channel some of this impotent rage out of myself and into where it belongs: the cracked and uneven pavements of London.

*It probably goes without saying, but this longlist includes the Mars Volta; see also PJ Harvey, Shilpa Ray, and Self Esteem.
**Wikipedia informs me that Invisible were a seventies Argentinian prog band, so that’s another one for the Spotify queue.

Track listing:
Pineapple Face
Not Even Toad Loves You
To Kill a Chi Chi
Trick Harpoon Stare of Baby
High Water Hell
Saturine
Crow’s Feet
Heart Mistakes
Logged Into Bliss
Fortuna
Twice a Plague

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