Review: The Intima

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The Intima
“Peril & Panic”
(Slowdance)

I’’ve been sitting on this one for nearly three months because I’’ve been looking for a way to describe such an angst filled punk record.  Not that angst is anything new to punk music, but these guys have these violin and guitar driven chords and spastic drum beats like I’ve never heard before.  The violin chords sound specifically strange (middle eastern strange), but good.  Match that with Fugazi/Embrace type vocals and lyrical themes and it makes for quite an experience.  It took me two months and literally dozens of listens just to fully digest this album.

Months later I thought I bought this record because it was very special to me (and I buy most of the stuff that is truly near and dear to me).  I found it on my work in process list for Modern Fix and was really mad at myself for not writing my review already because writing about something I honestly cherish is very difficult.  Seriously, I think this album helps define what music is in 2003.  The orchestral frustration and flat out eerie sound in any and all the tracks taken in the breadth of a world driven by greed, war, suffering and a whole host of other problems is something that must be experienced.

This is the best album of the year that no one will ever hear.  I’’d be willing to bet it would become a part of you and change the way you feel about music and yourself.  You must have this record.