Musically, “Egomessiah” is a merciless exploration of the beauty and horror of human individuation. For Lappin, this musical evocation is even more drastic: a personal shivering deity like Pinhead cannot be summoned easily without the most crucial conditions. It must be able to withstand the identification and splitting of the self:
The first track “Lapse” is an aggressively presented collapse with the old, sheltered world, both sonically and lyrically. Within the second song “Violetor“, which is one of the most powerful, atmospheric moments on the album, the sacrifice comes full circle. Mind and body can now be adopted. Polarizing, manic and yet with ardour, Lappin presents himself in the alter ego of Pinhead as deliverer in the following tracks. This also means having to wander around aimlessly in no man’s land and the soundscapes of “Absurdist”, questioning the reason of life itself.
Somehow it must be possible to kill your own ego, to scream at the opponent in the mirror, to question yourself to the bone – to see what remains of one’s own constitution. The eternal struggle of trying to become the better version of yourself is continued in the song “In Recent Times”. The celebration of phoney self-adulation then takes place in the uber-stylization of the ego. The song “I I I” is the crowning, the absurd glory culmination: pretending and at the same time knowing that there is no “Egomessiah“, Lappin runs rampant with everything at his disposal, the chaos and madness of human existence included.
Up to this point, the arrangements follow a straightforward structure. In “Used Future”, it drifts into insane alleys: it would be a hypocritical alternative to wish for the usual shining angel, the saving instance that liberates you without having to do anything yourself. The song comes across as a desperate letter to the world that denounces its own – but also externally controlled – deadlocked ways and paints a picture of a gloomy future. One of the most nihilistic moments on “Egomessiah“.
Fittingly, the hope that someone else will solve one’s own problems dies in the acoustic song “Counterfate”, which is also one of the most personal moments on the album. Unfortunately, life in such enchanted dependencies is rather difficult than possible.
With “Serene Day”, calmness enters the scene and so does the transition to the more electronic way out in “Lonefall”. Instead of casting the demons towards another person, it seems more worthy to let them fall prey to the alter ego in a slow dance, to eliminate them in a playful “Transition” in order to become an aggressively stigmatizing, metaphysical Abraxas towards the ending: an indulgement in melancholic resolution. In a fitting manner, we look back at the far road in the longest song and album-closer “Lesser Lights”, in whose final minutes the only true, duric soundscape enters and allows something like hope to shimmer through.
Or a new beginning?
“Egomessiah” – a story of breaking and reassembling, a farewell to indoctrinated ideas and the ghosts of the past. A tale about leaving an old world behind in order to embrace everything new and above all: oneself.