Thin : "Demonstration 2014"

T Lenger the man behind the Grand Rapids black metal project Obliti Devoravit has released this five song ep simply titled "Demonstration 2014". This was released by Colloquial Sound in  a Uber-limited run of 44 tapes on October 5th. This ep starts off  with "Female Spit " a minute and half of Lo-fi rumble that comes to the edge of being muffled. The bass over powers the intense jangle of the guitars that teetering upon sharp needles of feedback.  The guitar fights to be more audible as it climbs to the forefront of the mix, leaving the punk-ish  vocals which lay buried and unintelligible.

His former project might have been black metal , but this is without a doubt  more punk than metal. "Dead to Me" features Colloquial Sound main man Damian Master, to what capacity, I can only guess  he is lending his voice as the cavernous howl that chimes in. Here the pace changes as does the timbre of the attack, but the stalking chug to the middle riff of what could be the chorus splits the difference between being metal and  rock n roll. It still is coming from a very punk place in how it's thrown at you. Towards the end of the song he begins to batter at the taunt strings of the guitars in a manner more primal than even Joy Division's most punk moments. "That Feeling" lashes out in shouts of defiance and the haphazard playing of punk. The vocals blurt out a rapid mutter of  something, that is more attitude than execution.

All about being in you face, I can hear this going down one drunken night in a house I used to squat in. Full of ideas and energy, some of which would translate better if he got into a proper studio. Manic and ranting in the manner of  most punk from the Maximum Rock n Roll days of the late 80's. Simplistic is an understatement. It's the chug of songs like "Put Me On a Wheel, that catches you by the throat. They simmer with a similar violence that some of the crust/ death rock cross over in the past two years has. The vocals are more tortured cracking into a growl. The bass pulses like a beefy slab of prehistoric muscle sent to wreck havoc on a apocalyptic wasteland. "One Hand" takes this a step further into the darkness, keyboards hover in the dusk of the howling madman writhing under the almost Swans like drone they settle into..

I will round this one down  to a 7 as the production is so rough it makes it a rough listen for me, though I appreciate where they are going here and would have been more likely to cut them slack in this area if I was still a teenager. I will keep my ears out for what Lenger continues to do, it seems like he shifts from project to project every year, so it is doubtful, that we will hear any thing from Thin, if he keeps with his track record. You can click below if you enjoy sitting around drunk in abandoned houses then this will resonate with you, more than it does me at this juncture in my life, but  it's not secret that I am more partial to metal than punk.