Rudimentary Peni - Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric

Sealed continue down the Rudimentary Peni rabbit hole with a first time reissue of their apparently 'misunderstood' third LP, recorded in 1992 but shelved until its release in 1995. Claiming any Rudimentary Peni album misunderstood, at least more so than any of their other records, feels like a bit of a tautology. They are a truly unusual band, and in a lot of ways, without precedent. Perhaps Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric is considered trickier to parse than others because it coincided with Nick Blinko's detainment under the 1983 Mental Health Act, a set of circumstances that can't help but colour anyone's understanding of the associated art and music. Perhaps there's a little more to it. Drop the needle on the record and the first thing you hear is Blinko repeating the words 'Pogo Pope' for three minutes before realising that there's a bed track playing the phrase 'Popus Adrianus' throughout the entire thing, a kind of maddening mantra that suggests we all potentially be guided by intrusive thoughts/voices... But let's not fetishise the struggle too much, and instead appreciate this for the off-kilter hardcore mutation it is, one that relies on an almost kraut-like guitar-driven persistence and blackened iconoclasm that must have confused the hell out of the zeitgeist in 1995. Isn't it strange how music once designated difficult, misunderstood, or 'unintelligible', makes a lot of sense a few years down the line. Some albums were born at the wrong time I guess, though you get the impression the clock is always a bit out of sync with Rudimentary Peni.