Theologian: "Some Things Have To Be Endured"

This odd project reminds me of a noisier version of This Mortal Coil. It's helmed by Leech of Navicon Torture Technologies and for the most part could be the sound track to a haunted house. It features the vocal talents( which might be a strong use of the word in some cases) of  under ground female such asRachael Kozak from Hecate, Sewer Goddess' Kristen MacArthur, Rachel Maloney of Tonikom, Nikki Telladictorian of Prometheus Burning, Patricia Benitez of Fetish Drone, Gillian Leigh Bowling from Teloahqaal, Delphic Oracle's Christina Key along with  Professional opera singer Melissa c Kelly.But even after that role call most of the voices are mixed back into the background of this dark swathes of electronic sound.

This project's mission statement is to chronicle the development of his own personal mythology that was introduced to the world via Clive Barker's Hellbound Heart story or in other words Hellraiser and intertwined with Wayne Douglas Barlowe's Inferno series. So a lot of thoughts on hell. To leech's credit he has created the sonic equivalent to hellish landscapes, but any message he is trying to get across is buried in the murk.The opener "Black Cavern Myopia" is a noisy drone with witch like cackles narrating in the far reaches of these caverns. Not unlike something Diamanda Galas might have done, but not quite what I consider to be actual music."Ectothermism" has some what of a bass drone layered under synths with a woman's voice crying out in the distance. So it begins to get closer to becoming music. This trend doesn't relent on " Gore-Stained Ramparts" which is a wasteland of industrial noise layered over blips and glitches.      

Grand Guignol is the first song that actually sounds like a song with a real chorus and melody that even reaches as far as to capture an old Cocteau Twins sort of feel."Like Love, Only Real" is musical much like something Swans might paint with sound. The synths and samples create a womb like ambiance, but overall is another piece of dark drone noise.Most of the album I'm straining to listen for where all these female singers have been buried. "the Conjoined Deviant Procession" has at least one of the singers coming up for air with a very stark spoken word type approach. Her stern alto mutters into between the pound of machinery.Things don't warm up any on " Welcome to the Golden Age of Beggars" it grinds metal on metal to the drone of a synth, which receives a little more goth like treatment from the girl who speaks up in the midst of this. This song has a little bit of melody drift in beneath it all.

The album closes with "Writhing Corpus Landscape" I can appreciate the dark vibe, at times it does recall both Swans and Psychic Tv in their more experimental moments. The spoken word parts remind me of Genesis P orridge, for sure but often noise and drone supersedes the song, if their is a song to be found in some of this. I have enjoyed using it as background music so I'll give this album a 7 even though I don't see it as something I need on My iPod.  

5.5