Paul Watson aka BBBlood has been a friend of mine for the past few years. We started talking around 2008/2009, and put out a split release together, I under my retired REACHING. moniker. We stayed in light contact throughout the years leading up to the release of 'Destroy, Shatter, Stun, Intoxicate' c20 that I just put out with Void Seance.
BBBlood has always been of interest to me because of Paul's keen sense of texture when creating his tracks. Layers and layers of seemingly different textures are contrasted together to create atmosphere and emotion unlike that of most harsh noise today. A sense of sophistication and obvious well-planning shows that Paul certainly knows what he is doing. Each micro-detail, each new element carefully planned and laid out, as if each track were telling a fucked up story.
RUST c20
SELF RELEASE, December 2010
Side A immediately pummels my speakers with HNW textures and shrill droning feedback that split into deeper bowel moving, blotting rumbles and high-pitched harsh noise scratching and scraping, sounding like contact mics. The feedback comes and goes, the rumbling begins to slap-back echo before churning and thrashing into higher gain territory. What's nice about this track is about how elements and textures come and go- returning full force. The low rumbling ceases, leaving only the scratching and scraping, like 1000 nails on a chalkboard, over and over in what sounds like a circular, almost whirlwind motion. The churning returns briefly before fading once more. The feedback also ceases. A new mid-range swirl is introduced, sounding similar to ocean waves. The scratching turns into a higher pitched static and what sounds to be cymbals or junk metal fade in. At this point the track is stripped bare of all low end, before HNW walls burst through, also bringing back the scraping that was a mentioned earlier. A sense of fried circuitry can only be felt here, the charred black wall surging with swampy lows and electric-shock high crackles. The wall turns into a moster, screaming before cutting out- leaving a looping organic texture before fading.
Side B slowly sneaks out of my speakers, dark-ambient atmospheres gradually building up. A drone starts to take center-stage before fading back into the ambience. Heavy contact mic'ing emerges almost instantly, smashing, hitting, bashing. The atmospheres are no more. Violent Japanese-style bursts, blown out low ends throbbing and pulsating while the scraping continues on. Feedback emerges before everything cuts back into the dark ambience. A certain fuzzed out circuit sound gains momentum and volume over the ambience, going from it's constant volume to dominating the track, before going back to it's regular presence. Crackling flame-spewing starts under the ambience, not quite white noise, not quite hnw, before cutting quickly into contact micing under the same ambience. Feedback flies by, shifting and disappearing in waves. The scraping piles on thickly, only stopping to let feedback make repeated cameos. Again the harsh japanese thrashing starts once more, but way more blown out, extremely blown out. And then cuts off. More violent than the first track, but clearly thought out in the placement of each movement.
This cassette makes me want to listen to it again. And again. The tracks are JUST the right length to get that certain itch that leaves you wanting more.
5/5
I will be reviewing 'Lazar House' momentarily.
BBBLOGSPOT
1/26/2011
1/22/2011
TEEN ACTION RECORDS
TEEN ACTION RECORDS was nice enough to send a mass of audio for me to review.
AL QUEDA / DEMONOLOGISTS c9
A shiny silver cassette comes in standard jewel case with xeroxed artwork.
AL QUEDA starts their side with a sluggish beat, before all hell breaks loose. Wild guitar, hideous vocals, and the same blown out beat, along with huge amounts of white noise. The track cuts suddenly and another starts. It is soon evident that their side contains several short tracks. The second track begins with a rock riff that slowly is buried under piles of HNW static. It is immediately followed by a looping rumbling noise, a reverberated guitar loop, and metal pulsing and scraping as the third track. The fourth track is cut up screaming, metal chugging and buried drums, metal screeching and looping, whole track seems like one big loop. The last track contains beautiful looping ambience, squirming tadpole glitching laid overtop. The ambience fades and the glitching continues. Each track seems like a preview for something greater. Ideas and thoughts sketched out. It would have been nice to hear the continuation of ONE of these tracks on the cassette that took up the entire 4.5 minute duration, but the schizophrenic noisecore blast quality is nice, especially out of the context of noisecore.
DEMONOLISTS side starts with high pitched pulsating hissing that starts to blur and gain more low end, evolving into a more chunky, HNW style wall. It gains an almost scraping-like high pitched static blast over top of the wall, which now sounds like the pulse from a dying cassette recorder. The wall marches on, grainy, but gains what sounds to be an almost hallow quality to it- a father away feedback sound that isn't as close as the static is in the forefront, that drones away as the wall crunches and burns. The wall gains sub-bass that compresses the sound of the track and creates even more tension. Somehow DEMONOLOGISTS have created a blackened wall of torture that fades into nothing.
5/5, a very interesting listen
ALLEIN LUDDITE Untitled c40
Sweet black latex packaging holds small xeroxed insert and black cassette.
Side A begins with what sounds like the failed inflation of a balloon in a tight chamber. The struggle to blow up the balloon, the squeak of pressed lips, the shrill and frequency of saliva blowing, that begins to crackle as the blowing intensifies. Slowly the sounds seem as if they are coming from both above and below water, the blowing still heard, but the pulse and pop of bubbles from below greatly present. The blowing becomes almost rhythmic, turning from the squeaking of lips to the squeaking of a voice. The bubbles become greater and of more volume, their popping becoming more and more important.
The next track sounds like junk guitar and the tapping of metal. It then turns into a more junk-oriented affair, the scraping sounds like multiple items upon the guitar. It then moves into an almost bow-like sound moving back and forth across the strings, to the point of what sounds like almost breaking. The guitar sounds like it actually gets turned ON and plugged in, the E string down-tuned, being bowed, while more junk is being tossed and thrown and rubbed against the guitar. The guitar drones low and full of bass, the junk calms. The junk stops and the guitar droning gets deeper and more concentrated, it sounds like a fat synthesizer.
The B-Side starts with more junk sounds, piling on top of each other. The tension of strings is heard overtop all of the junk. It continues on and generally sounds like the two previous guitar tracks.
The next track picks up in a similar vein to the first track, but instead of bubbles scraping and screeching. The tense scurrying fades and turns into longer drawn out drones that begin to gradually get more and more choppy. There is a dichotomy between lower bowel drones and high static-driven blown out scraping.
A wide atmosphere and metal on metal taping with long echo trails is found on the following track. This is by far the most moody of the improvisations, a hostile bare environment where every detail is important. The hits die down for a short period, before coming back, closer, with longer reverb trails sending the listener deeper into the abyss. The tapping becomes faster, the droning ceases, and a sort of faux-rhythm is formed with the frequency of the beats, before fading.
I find the cassette to be a little drawn out, and some of the tracks drag on for just long enough to become trite. Some decent concepts float about on the cassette, and the final track on the B side (Metal Sheets) seems to be the most (seemingly) thought out of the pieces.
2/5
AL QUEDA / DEMONOLOGISTS c9
A shiny silver cassette comes in standard jewel case with xeroxed artwork.
AL QUEDA starts their side with a sluggish beat, before all hell breaks loose. Wild guitar, hideous vocals, and the same blown out beat, along with huge amounts of white noise. The track cuts suddenly and another starts. It is soon evident that their side contains several short tracks. The second track begins with a rock riff that slowly is buried under piles of HNW static. It is immediately followed by a looping rumbling noise, a reverberated guitar loop, and metal pulsing and scraping as the third track. The fourth track is cut up screaming, metal chugging and buried drums, metal screeching and looping, whole track seems like one big loop. The last track contains beautiful looping ambience, squirming tadpole glitching laid overtop. The ambience fades and the glitching continues. Each track seems like a preview for something greater. Ideas and thoughts sketched out. It would have been nice to hear the continuation of ONE of these tracks on the cassette that took up the entire 4.5 minute duration, but the schizophrenic noisecore blast quality is nice, especially out of the context of noisecore.
DEMONOLISTS side starts with high pitched pulsating hissing that starts to blur and gain more low end, evolving into a more chunky, HNW style wall. It gains an almost scraping-like high pitched static blast over top of the wall, which now sounds like the pulse from a dying cassette recorder. The wall marches on, grainy, but gains what sounds to be an almost hallow quality to it- a father away feedback sound that isn't as close as the static is in the forefront, that drones away as the wall crunches and burns. The wall gains sub-bass that compresses the sound of the track and creates even more tension. Somehow DEMONOLOGISTS have created a blackened wall of torture that fades into nothing.
5/5, a very interesting listen
ALLEIN LUDDITE Untitled c40
Sweet black latex packaging holds small xeroxed insert and black cassette.
Side A begins with what sounds like the failed inflation of a balloon in a tight chamber. The struggle to blow up the balloon, the squeak of pressed lips, the shrill and frequency of saliva blowing, that begins to crackle as the blowing intensifies. Slowly the sounds seem as if they are coming from both above and below water, the blowing still heard, but the pulse and pop of bubbles from below greatly present. The blowing becomes almost rhythmic, turning from the squeaking of lips to the squeaking of a voice. The bubbles become greater and of more volume, their popping becoming more and more important.
The next track sounds like junk guitar and the tapping of metal. It then turns into a more junk-oriented affair, the scraping sounds like multiple items upon the guitar. It then moves into an almost bow-like sound moving back and forth across the strings, to the point of what sounds like almost breaking. The guitar sounds like it actually gets turned ON and plugged in, the E string down-tuned, being bowed, while more junk is being tossed and thrown and rubbed against the guitar. The guitar drones low and full of bass, the junk calms. The junk stops and the guitar droning gets deeper and more concentrated, it sounds like a fat synthesizer.
The B-Side starts with more junk sounds, piling on top of each other. The tension of strings is heard overtop all of the junk. It continues on and generally sounds like the two previous guitar tracks.
The next track picks up in a similar vein to the first track, but instead of bubbles scraping and screeching. The tense scurrying fades and turns into longer drawn out drones that begin to gradually get more and more choppy. There is a dichotomy between lower bowel drones and high static-driven blown out scraping.
A wide atmosphere and metal on metal taping with long echo trails is found on the following track. This is by far the most moody of the improvisations, a hostile bare environment where every detail is important. The hits die down for a short period, before coming back, closer, with longer reverb trails sending the listener deeper into the abyss. The tapping becomes faster, the droning ceases, and a sort of faux-rhythm is formed with the frequency of the beats, before fading.
I find the cassette to be a little drawn out, and some of the tracks drag on for just long enough to become trite. Some decent concepts float about on the cassette, and the final track on the B side (Metal Sheets) seems to be the most (seemingly) thought out of the pieces.
2/5
BURSTS
BURSTS is a new label out of HOUSTON, TEXAS. The first two offerings of this label reviewed.
burst 01: WEREWOLF JERUSALEM/RESPIRATOR c20:
Minimal packaging consists of a plain black c20 (with no markings designating which artist is on either side) comes in standard cassette shell with xeroxed artwork oh what appears to be two people by a fence.
Side A/Werewolf Jerusalem starts off with a lower pitched, chunky wall that grits and grinds and corrodes and eats away at the speakers like a thousand maggots. A sudden blast of even more highly concentrated static vomit pushes the already thick wall into new territory. The consistency of the wall gets so great in parts that the grit becomes compacted, almost too much before returning back to the already charred state. The wall continues on its mangled, mutilated way twisting, churning. It starts to build even more, the gain increases ever so lightly, only pushing harder until fading into static.
Side B/Respirator is introduced with a ghostly hiss and what sounds to be contact mic'ed sounds of rustling. A low wall of ambience creeps into the background, gaining momentum as the contact mic'd sounds seem to gain a quick echo quality behind them. The sounds scatter and scurry around like bugs or darts, always grounded by the hallow ambience behind. The sounds come and go, gaining and losing momentum before ultimately coming to an end. The ambience goes on, continuing until the end of the track before cutting off suddenly.
4/5
burst 02: STRESS: Bury The Hatchet 3" CDr
This mini-cdr comes in a taped, hand assembled, sprayed sleeve. Inside, a black with white speckle cdr, a torn piece of paper hand stamped with 'stress burry the hatchet' as well as a hand cut, screened stress patch.
The track immediately starts- a blown out, empty wall. It sounds as if the wall was recorded in a cave, at the lowest quality, but at such a high volume that the audio was clipped with whatever device recording it. Around two minutes in, the ghostly wall catches ablaze and a serious sizzle and crackle starts in the wall, all the while still having a cavernous, fuzzed out feel. Like a torch burning in a cave it rages on. Eventually, a new detail starts to emerge- the creaking and squealing of warped wheels turning, possibly that of a cassette deck. This new texture is gradual and eventually dominates the track for a while, before the track becomes deeper, losing a bit of its claustrophobic feel, but gaining more texture. This flaming mess carries us to the end of the track before cutting off.
3/5
Overall this first batch from BURSTS is quite satisfying. Hopefully the label keeps up the good work and continues to put out quality TEXAS noise.
BURSTS BLOGSPOT
burst 01: WEREWOLF JERUSALEM/RESPIRATOR c20:
Minimal packaging consists of a plain black c20 (with no markings designating which artist is on either side) comes in standard cassette shell with xeroxed artwork oh what appears to be two people by a fence.
Side A/Werewolf Jerusalem starts off with a lower pitched, chunky wall that grits and grinds and corrodes and eats away at the speakers like a thousand maggots. A sudden blast of even more highly concentrated static vomit pushes the already thick wall into new territory. The consistency of the wall gets so great in parts that the grit becomes compacted, almost too much before returning back to the already charred state. The wall continues on its mangled, mutilated way twisting, churning. It starts to build even more, the gain increases ever so lightly, only pushing harder until fading into static.
Side B/Respirator is introduced with a ghostly hiss and what sounds to be contact mic'ed sounds of rustling. A low wall of ambience creeps into the background, gaining momentum as the contact mic'd sounds seem to gain a quick echo quality behind them. The sounds scatter and scurry around like bugs or darts, always grounded by the hallow ambience behind. The sounds come and go, gaining and losing momentum before ultimately coming to an end. The ambience goes on, continuing until the end of the track before cutting off suddenly.
4/5
burst 02: STRESS: Bury The Hatchet 3" CDr
This mini-cdr comes in a taped, hand assembled, sprayed sleeve. Inside, a black with white speckle cdr, a torn piece of paper hand stamped with 'stress burry the hatchet' as well as a hand cut, screened stress patch.
The track immediately starts- a blown out, empty wall. It sounds as if the wall was recorded in a cave, at the lowest quality, but at such a high volume that the audio was clipped with whatever device recording it. Around two minutes in, the ghostly wall catches ablaze and a serious sizzle and crackle starts in the wall, all the while still having a cavernous, fuzzed out feel. Like a torch burning in a cave it rages on. Eventually, a new detail starts to emerge- the creaking and squealing of warped wheels turning, possibly that of a cassette deck. This new texture is gradual and eventually dominates the track for a while, before the track becomes deeper, losing a bit of its claustrophobic feel, but gaining more texture. This flaming mess carries us to the end of the track before cutting off.
3/5
Overall this first batch from BURSTS is quite satisfying. Hopefully the label keeps up the good work and continues to put out quality TEXAS noise.
BURSTS BLOGSPOT
1/18/2011
Bizarre Uproar: Filthy Communions 2005-2009
TURGID ANIMAL, TA488, 300 copies
Bizarre Uproar's Filthy Communions gathers various live actions from 2005-2009 onto one disc. The disc itself is pro-pressed and comes with self-depreciating, fecal-fetish photos and live shots.
The disc opens with 'Winter 2009 Lepakkomies, Helsinki', amplified arabic chants are joined by and followed by Pasi's long-delay vocals, shouting, and screaming, layered with plenty of hiss and subtle metal abuse. As the chants fade in and out, the metal and junk abuse, along with the vocals, build. Stronger. More intense. Thriving. Disgusting, filthy feedback violence. Pulsing in and out. The chanting finally fades. A steady beat grows, beating itself into the ground. Pasi's screams intensify, the anger, hate, intensity only getting stronger. The vocals subside and only the mechanical pulse is left. Each time it hits it grows stronger, like a thousand kicks to the stomach, only getting worse as time goes on. The pulsing also fades, and a chunky static takes its place. Like sticking a synth in a frying pan, it boils and bubbles and carries on. It glitches before cutting out.
"Winter 2009 Helsinki Bunker" opens with an upbeat old tune with deep male vocals, almost a marching, celebratory song. The old song fades and slap-back vocals and feedback kick in. The shouting turns to screaming, the feedback low-pitched and only reaching higher frequencies before the screaming begins. Eventually a mechanical rhythmic thud begins under the vocals. It chugs along for a bit before gaining a bit of momentum. The pulsing fades and a swirl of concentrated static is joined by distant non-reverberated vocals, which quickly gain distant reverb. The old track makes a second appearance, slowed down like molasses.
"Autumn 2008 Helsinki Bunker" starts off with stuttering heavy electronics and deeply buried vocals. The vocals slowly make their way to the forefront and become more intense. The track chugs along with the vocals coming and going. Eventually around the 7:50 mark the chugging fades and feedback and contact mic abuse take over. The rawness and gritty textures of the contact-mic'ing are a nice touch. The distortion fades as well and only pure amplified contact mic'ed sounds are left. Sound clips of a childs song are briefly heard before powerful shouting starts, all the while over the pure contact mic'ed sounds. The contact mic'ing stops and only the sample of the childrens song is heard before piercing feedback shrieks begin tearing and ripping ear drums. Reverb-drenched talking is followed by deep static, almost HNW rumble. Again feedback joins the rumble, followed by vocals. All of these elements swirling around in a sick disgusting mess of blown out bliss before fading out.
"Autumn 2007 Rio De Janero, Plano B" is a lower quality track, with a constant mic buzz from the recorder overtop of the recording. It starts off with static, junk, and contact mic abuse with vocals disbursed throughout. It continues, cutting in and out randomly. The static cuts off, and what sounds like marching is heard under the vocals. It almost sounds as if the marching is being recorded through a contact mic, and inside a barrel. The forceful static continues to cut in and out. The marching cuts out and harsh vocals and squealing commence. The squealing turns into machine-gun blasts of choppy feedback, 1000 bullets per minute, rapid fire.
"Winter 2006 Helsinki Factory" opens with chains on metal scraping, throwing, violent abuse. Feedback and echoing static begin to slowly form and pulse. Vocals are greeted by low, bass atmospheres and swirling, phased out oscillations. More chain abuse- a nice touch. Definitely the most diverse track of the bunch. Vocals and chains, the grey sound of the oscillators/feedback/static and the crisp juxtaposition of the chains over top.
This disc gives a decent glimpse into the live sound of Bizarre Uproar and the reverse evolution of the act's stage presence. Some of the sets were a bit more diverse than others, but overall the disc was unrelenting. Pure filthy electronics and chain abuse. Great for those searching for current straight up power electronics acts that are still chugging out solid releases.
4/5
Bizarre Uproar's Filthy Communions gathers various live actions from 2005-2009 onto one disc. The disc itself is pro-pressed and comes with self-depreciating, fecal-fetish photos and live shots.
The disc opens with 'Winter 2009 Lepakkomies, Helsinki', amplified arabic chants are joined by and followed by Pasi's long-delay vocals, shouting, and screaming, layered with plenty of hiss and subtle metal abuse. As the chants fade in and out, the metal and junk abuse, along with the vocals, build. Stronger. More intense. Thriving. Disgusting, filthy feedback violence. Pulsing in and out. The chanting finally fades. A steady beat grows, beating itself into the ground. Pasi's screams intensify, the anger, hate, intensity only getting stronger. The vocals subside and only the mechanical pulse is left. Each time it hits it grows stronger, like a thousand kicks to the stomach, only getting worse as time goes on. The pulsing also fades, and a chunky static takes its place. Like sticking a synth in a frying pan, it boils and bubbles and carries on. It glitches before cutting out.
"Winter 2009 Helsinki Bunker" opens with an upbeat old tune with deep male vocals, almost a marching, celebratory song. The old song fades and slap-back vocals and feedback kick in. The shouting turns to screaming, the feedback low-pitched and only reaching higher frequencies before the screaming begins. Eventually a mechanical rhythmic thud begins under the vocals. It chugs along for a bit before gaining a bit of momentum. The pulsing fades and a swirl of concentrated static is joined by distant non-reverberated vocals, which quickly gain distant reverb. The old track makes a second appearance, slowed down like molasses.
"Autumn 2008 Helsinki Bunker" starts off with stuttering heavy electronics and deeply buried vocals. The vocals slowly make their way to the forefront and become more intense. The track chugs along with the vocals coming and going. Eventually around the 7:50 mark the chugging fades and feedback and contact mic abuse take over. The rawness and gritty textures of the contact-mic'ing are a nice touch. The distortion fades as well and only pure amplified contact mic'ed sounds are left. Sound clips of a childs song are briefly heard before powerful shouting starts, all the while over the pure contact mic'ed sounds. The contact mic'ing stops and only the sample of the childrens song is heard before piercing feedback shrieks begin tearing and ripping ear drums. Reverb-drenched talking is followed by deep static, almost HNW rumble. Again feedback joins the rumble, followed by vocals. All of these elements swirling around in a sick disgusting mess of blown out bliss before fading out.
"Autumn 2007 Rio De Janero, Plano B" is a lower quality track, with a constant mic buzz from the recorder overtop of the recording. It starts off with static, junk, and contact mic abuse with vocals disbursed throughout. It continues, cutting in and out randomly. The static cuts off, and what sounds like marching is heard under the vocals. It almost sounds as if the marching is being recorded through a contact mic, and inside a barrel. The forceful static continues to cut in and out. The marching cuts out and harsh vocals and squealing commence. The squealing turns into machine-gun blasts of choppy feedback, 1000 bullets per minute, rapid fire.
"Winter 2006 Helsinki Factory" opens with chains on metal scraping, throwing, violent abuse. Feedback and echoing static begin to slowly form and pulse. Vocals are greeted by low, bass atmospheres and swirling, phased out oscillations. More chain abuse- a nice touch. Definitely the most diverse track of the bunch. Vocals and chains, the grey sound of the oscillators/feedback/static and the crisp juxtaposition of the chains over top.
This disc gives a decent glimpse into the live sound of Bizarre Uproar and the reverse evolution of the act's stage presence. Some of the sets were a bit more diverse than others, but overall the disc was unrelenting. Pure filthy electronics and chain abuse. Great for those searching for current straight up power electronics acts that are still chugging out solid releases.
4/5
V/A: Death Metal 4xCDr
anarchofreaksproduction AFP 015, 2010. 20 copies.
This massive wall box set brings together 4 HNW artists into one massive wall marathon not to be missed.
Concrete Threat offers an hour long slab of unchanging, hissing wall. The track really displays the guttural, ripping qualities that can be achieved with the DOD Death Metal pedal.
White Gimp Mask opens up his disc with a wall that centers around a constant buzzing, almost as if something were to be electrocuted, or grounded incorrectly. The buzzing plants the track firmly- creating a massive base to the track. Surrounding the buzz is a sort of swirling inconsistant hiss that seems to have two parts to it- a high-end scraping and pulling, and a lower-end vortex of circular void, dragging along into nothing. The wall remains unchanging until the final few seconds, when it begins to slowly wind down into a low-end rumble before cutting off into the next track.
The second untitled White Gimp Mask track picks up in a similar sonic vein, a boosted-mids wall, this time without the buzz. Instead, an almost constant bobbling or rattling like sound takes the foreground in the track. It slowly gains a little more high-end within the first two minutes. It then becomes another stagnant, massive slab of thick, unrelenting wall. Around the 21 minute mark some very huge bass rumbles interrupt the otherwise unmoving wall before returning to the same constant static. Within the last few seconds the bass subsides and the track is reduced to nothing.
Dead Body Collection fills his disc with an hour and two minute long cut of blown out-bass style wall. Like White Gimp Mask's disc, there is a nice contrast between low rumbles and high static. The track stays firm throughout the whole hour with very little variation. Towards the 50 minute mark the higher pitched static becomes ever-so-slightly more intense and wild, thrashing and wailing about before abruptly coming to an end. Silence becomes deafening.
Å's disc opens up with 'Rest', a feedback laden wall that consists of a central high-pitched drone, with plenty of static crackle on top. Following suit with the other tracks, it remains constant with little to no variation. It is a different approach to wall, and a challenging listen. The track smoothly transitions into 'In'.
The feedback is cut, and like White Gimp Mask's first track, a constant buzzing takes its place. Mid to low-end rumble joins the scooped-mids buzzing for another 20 minute assault that fades into 'Peace'.
This track has a bit more gain and high end than 'In', but still continues with the same mid to low-end rumble. From time to time the higher end static becomes extremely dense and then fades back to its original form.
The smoothness of the transitions between tracks sounds like they could be strung together as one piece, which, assuming the title "Rest In Piece' was the intent. The intentionality of breaking the mammoth wall into three parts and adding variations into each is a great execution.
The photography on the front is well executed and looks pro. The DOD Death Metal mini instruction manual is a nice touch/nice read while digesting the disc. The pin, a knob from the Death Metal pedal with HNW typeset above is also a nice touch. My only complaint with packaging is that more could have been done with the discs (sprayed, screened, etc) instead of the minimal marking on the white discs. The contrast between the dark cover and the white discs is a bit distracting, but other than that a solid release.
Overall this box set takes some time to digest- 4 hours of DOD Death Metal worshiping, monolithic, lifeless HNW. Slowly it creeps into your head and over the four discs spirals your sanity into nothing. Long live DOD Death Metal. Long live DEATH METAL V/A 4xCDr.
3.5/5
BLOGSPOT
This massive wall box set brings together 4 HNW artists into one massive wall marathon not to be missed.
Concrete Threat offers an hour long slab of unchanging, hissing wall. The track really displays the guttural, ripping qualities that can be achieved with the DOD Death Metal pedal.
White Gimp Mask opens up his disc with a wall that centers around a constant buzzing, almost as if something were to be electrocuted, or grounded incorrectly. The buzzing plants the track firmly- creating a massive base to the track. Surrounding the buzz is a sort of swirling inconsistant hiss that seems to have two parts to it- a high-end scraping and pulling, and a lower-end vortex of circular void, dragging along into nothing. The wall remains unchanging until the final few seconds, when it begins to slowly wind down into a low-end rumble before cutting off into the next track.
The second untitled White Gimp Mask track picks up in a similar sonic vein, a boosted-mids wall, this time without the buzz. Instead, an almost constant bobbling or rattling like sound takes the foreground in the track. It slowly gains a little more high-end within the first two minutes. It then becomes another stagnant, massive slab of thick, unrelenting wall. Around the 21 minute mark some very huge bass rumbles interrupt the otherwise unmoving wall before returning to the same constant static. Within the last few seconds the bass subsides and the track is reduced to nothing.
Dead Body Collection fills his disc with an hour and two minute long cut of blown out-bass style wall. Like White Gimp Mask's disc, there is a nice contrast between low rumbles and high static. The track stays firm throughout the whole hour with very little variation. Towards the 50 minute mark the higher pitched static becomes ever-so-slightly more intense and wild, thrashing and wailing about before abruptly coming to an end. Silence becomes deafening.
Å's disc opens up with 'Rest', a feedback laden wall that consists of a central high-pitched drone, with plenty of static crackle on top. Following suit with the other tracks, it remains constant with little to no variation. It is a different approach to wall, and a challenging listen. The track smoothly transitions into 'In'.
The feedback is cut, and like White Gimp Mask's first track, a constant buzzing takes its place. Mid to low-end rumble joins the scooped-mids buzzing for another 20 minute assault that fades into 'Peace'.
This track has a bit more gain and high end than 'In', but still continues with the same mid to low-end rumble. From time to time the higher end static becomes extremely dense and then fades back to its original form.
The smoothness of the transitions between tracks sounds like they could be strung together as one piece, which, assuming the title "Rest In Piece' was the intent. The intentionality of breaking the mammoth wall into three parts and adding variations into each is a great execution.
The photography on the front is well executed and looks pro. The DOD Death Metal mini instruction manual is a nice touch/nice read while digesting the disc. The pin, a knob from the Death Metal pedal with HNW typeset above is also a nice touch. My only complaint with packaging is that more could have been done with the discs (sprayed, screened, etc) instead of the minimal marking on the white discs. The contrast between the dark cover and the white discs is a bit distracting, but other than that a solid release.
Overall this box set takes some time to digest- 4 hours of DOD Death Metal worshiping, monolithic, lifeless HNW. Slowly it creeps into your head and over the four discs spirals your sanity into nothing. Long live DOD Death Metal. Long live DEATH METAL V/A 4xCDr.
3.5/5
BLOGSPOT
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