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A veteran of New York’s No Wave scene, Samuel Claiborne’s music is punctuated with the bleating horns and sharp angles that characterized the genre. After recovering from a spinal cord injury that left him for a time paralyzed, he is back with his new solo album, Love, Lust, and Genocide, which is imbued with a sense of spirituality inspired by his struggle.
His guitar style calls to mind the obvious influences of Kurt Cobain, but his vocal delivery and his poetic lyricism is more reminiscent of Leonard Cohen. The politics in the lyrics are occasionally heavy-handed, but with topics ranging from war to riots, it’s a difficult line to walk.
One of the best songs here is “Broken,” a personal insight into his own injury, and struggle with pain and depression, singing “I become my pain, not human.” His cover of the ever-popular Nine Inch Nails dirge, “Hurt,” doesn’t go unnoticed either, bringing a darkly psychedelic, droning quality to the song. “Say Goodbye to America” is like an exemplary lesson from the grunge textbook, and could have easily found a home in Seattle, circa 1991. Overall, Love, Lust, and Genocide feels like someone getting back into the groove, but perhaps that’s its intention; an audible, public exhibition of one man’s therapy.
