Prom King Stigmata is a tragedy. The kind you’re so amused and inspired by you have to listen again and again. Kind of like a 40 minute loop of car crashes, plane crashes and buildings blowing up. Featuring ECIDs’ explosive production, Jordan Miches’ convulsive delivery, and introducing David Mars’ charged dispatch. Violent, angry and scared are probably the simplest ways to describe this album. If that’s not enough for you one definition of “Stigmata” is a place or point on the skin that bleeds during certain mental states, as in hysteria. As far as I’m concerned that’s the definition that suits best.

   The album kicks of with a quote asking, “Have you ever had one of those years when everything seems to go wrong? Suddenly you wake up in the morning on the wrong side of your life.” Drifting into a hypnotic mid-east inspired heavy beat. Miche and Mars welcome you back from your journey, but where did you go and where are you now? Where you went is irrelevant. Where you’ve arrived is reality. Mars announces “Welcome to the mountain where your dreams won’t come true/welcome to the river that courage will hold you under” while Miche asks “I wonder if I’ll know what it’s like to be like to be omnipotent/swimming with these alligators in a flooded elevator.” The third track “Your Pull String Is Showing” is a reminder not to be a puppet and do your own thing to be truly happy. Trading the lines, “Snip the cord/Release the pressure/Don’t you feel better?” all of this over a mind melting beat increasing the intensity. “Never Mix Scotch and Martini’s” is a psychotic instrumental track that will make your heed the titles warning. “Eat Your Heart Out” is far from your typical breakup song. Starting with a chorus of screaming, “My heart is broken/Reach in and tear it out” Mars and Miche travel to the darkest place possible in the first few moments you realize everything you ever wanted is leaving you behind. More angry than sad you connect right away with the situation and are more than happy to shriek along “Why can’t I breathe as the scalpel cuts me open”.

   By the end of this trios mind-trip you have to wonder if this was the journey they were talking about. An incredibly frightening 40-minute breakdown you’re willing to relive over and over again. Not because you enjoyed it but because you enjoy the relief it brings you. Between the loud pounding ECID beats and the intensity of Jordan Miche and David Mars you find pieces of yourself.

-David Mars and Jordan Miche

www.myspace.com/promkingstigmata