Cloak of Altering : Ancient Paths Through Timeless Voids

The new project from the one man band Gnaw Their Tongues, Mories handling every scream,guitar and button pushed or mouse click on these drums. These songs as chaotically as they are to my ears still sound more like songs than the majority of what I've heard from Gnaw Their Tongues.While one man black metal bands is nothing new , what Mories Dodson his projects is certainly different, my first few listens to this concluded this is pretty much as dark as Gnaw but less noise and space even though there is a Greg deal of ambiance in certain sections.

The opener " A Plague Has Travelled with us" gets blasting after the opening creak. Since these are programmed drums they are able to blast at speeds humans aren't able to reach or maintain , the down side is the double kicks is buzz thin. The slower section in this one when it comes down from its initial spasm is cool and the song drifts off from there in an almost glitchy fashion. The mood and textures I like though unsure of the songwriting . "All I see is Dead Stars " treads similar ground until it sounds like Darth Vader boards the ship, the drum machines are thinly produced so speed aside its hard for them to sound heavy as is. The low growls on this off they are not pitch shifted in some way are well done they are buried in the mix so it's hard to tell, though when they have a monster effect on the, in the Ambiant break downs it's pretty obvious.

I was starting to get like a Fantomas vibe from this until the title track which started of making me think of " Last rights" Skinny Puppy, meets sounds of the Haunted Droid Factory, it strikes me as more dynamically balanced here though I liked the screaming better on the previous tracks , there is and interesting bass line that wanders of into a maze of discordant keyboards. I do think if Mories had called in the dude from Author Punisher this would be mind blowing. But alas the woes of musical misanthropy.

"Devoided" better screams return and the blasts sound almost real here I think I was just not paying attention to the double bass my first go through as it ounces like a vibrator on highest setting. The very Insert name ofa Mike Patton Project here spookiness of the breakdown is a welcome diversion and the programming isn't as nooning in this context. The disorted gate on the vocals midway through here's a nice touch to help add some density. I think listening to this through head phones makes it sound thinner than when it's just playing on the iPod dock.

"Initiation rites of Sector 5" starts of embracing the electronic nature of this and then veers off into a Morbid Angel riff. While the guitar is doing some pretty interesting things when the drums going into hyper digital blast I'm over it, good thing he keeps it very varied by this point. The second half of this song reminds me the most of Gnaw and the effect on the drums there works, I think if they had been given a more distorted sound in the mix the album would have benefitted, there are so many changes and sounding firing off on this one if one isn't to my liking it's quickly replaced by another.

The album closes with a futuristic tone on "the war has finally found us" it's almost like cyber dsbm as the guitars have the mournful tremolo to them. Surprisingly where the blasty nasties of mot black metal creates a hypnotic drone , I don't really get that from this album sonically . There are more unapologeticly electronic glitches which create an industrial Mr. Bungle feel. It's abrasive here in a migraine twisting tornado or jerked stop motion sound, like Emperor recorded through a blender, before letting you drift out into space. Inertia pulls you back in for some Lynchian spookiness, if he ever gets sucked into remake a sci if film I hope he takes notice of these guys.

The programmed drums are really the biggest distraction here and after Tiamat who was playing it too safe and conventional I needed something dark and wacky from left field so if I am able to block the buzz the blast beats out I can round this one up a whole point to an 8...though the battle royale that is my iPod hasn't had the final word on this.