Unit

It was 1997 when Regurgitator's Unit was released. Almost twenty years ago. I liked it then, though I never bought it.

More recently I added it to my offline music in Spotify, and I listened to it on a couple of nighttime walks. I realised something I never could have thought of as a thirteen year old: This album is the most concise summary of the feelings I have about being in your thirties.

I don't think that was intended by the band. Most people probably won't feel that way. But the more I listened to it the more I recognised my feelings and attitudes reflected in the music coming out of my headphones. It started from the opening track. I like your old stuff better than your new stuff. It was an immediate assault on any feelings of nostalgia for the past. Half 80s synths, and half faux-future voice effects - it was a middle finger to complaints about change. Yeah, I probably did come up with better stuff when I was younger, but before anyone can complain about it, fuck you.

Then the punchy riffs of Everyday Formula kick in and again I feel a strong affinity for the message.
"Everyday I shit into the sea. It's strange but it doesn't mean much to me."
The detachment from modern life is masked perfectly by the poppy melody and cheery background hums. Nothing in this song is a complaint, it's an observation. "My whole world's cheap and phony," but, "It's going to be alright."

I mean, at no point in listening to this album do I think, man, this lyrics are poetic and deep. But the delivery just sticks to me.

"I don't go to parties cause people tend to freak me out. Watch their lips to work it out. I can hear the words but I still don't know what it's all about," begins the next track. The meaning of this song is really about dancing in your lounge room. However, I find the introverted perspective relatable, and the accompanying bouncy funk to perfectly present this perspective as okay. Not just okay, struttable. In my twenties I used to feel a little ashamed of how much I disliked being in loud, noisy environments where I was supposed to be having fun. Now I love that I know what I like in a social event. Lower volumes, smaller crowds.

The rest of the album goes from strength to strength covering topics that are still relevant in 2016. Topics such as materialism, over-sexualisation, exploitation, digital dependence and depression are sung about. The attitude is not one of anger or apathy or anything else strong, really. They're just more observations or non-preachy lessons. Suggestions about what maybe could be better about life if we wanted a utopian society, but as someone in their thirties there's a really familiar lack of personal responsibility to change anything. As it says in Mr T: "I take freedom's path and I'll let my life be. Soul dedication to all my realities... It's the way it's meant to be."

I feel like the underlying message of Unit is that, we all know our world could be better if we worked together (I mean, the album's name alone is possibly proof of that), but ultimately, the young can't change anything and the older people (that is, over thirties) are too self-involved to cause any kind of revolution. As it goes in I Piss Alone, "I need a place where I can close and lock the door. There I can stop and let it flow."

It's a great album, which has aged about as well as I have I guess.

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