Black Metal History Month- meth. : "SHAME"

This band from Chicago taps into the same torment that bands like Portrayal of Guilt dig into. The riff is pounding with a sludge-like deliberation, while their singer screams with the unrelenting anguish of someone being disemboweled alive. It is very dark, so I think it belongs here in our annual celebration of black metal. Right now with the chaos being invoked on this album, it feels like blackened sludgecore would be the best description if we needed to tie it down to a genre. When things speed up there is more of a power-violence feel to it. They do hit you with rapid-fire intense blast beats. It does not give your ears the same sonic lubrication that black metal does by creating a hypnotic buzz. 

Normally I would decry bands who attempt this sort of thing, by asking what else can they do aside from being heavy. These guys put enough effort in to stop me before such a question needs to be raised. Unlike most bands with at least a grindcore influence, they do not try to make these songs little vicious two-minute bursts. There is a screamo stomp to certain accents of "Blush" which is an expression of harsh dissonance at times. They confront you with their flagrant disregard for the conformity of any real genre, just create disturbing passages that collide with one another. At times the results can be rather chilling. Where I think they part ways with black metal bands is in the intentions, this is a cathartic summoning of inner work where black metal is a worship of darkness. 

"Given" is like bizarre atmospheric hardcore. The vocals are often delivered in a manner that sounds like a chorus of gang vocals. There is also a great deal of brooding spaciousness to contrast this. It is something that does not sound like everyone else so there is nothing but respect for that. Things are jerked around with a more off-kilter frenzy on "Cruelty". Most of my complaints about music that puts a heavy sound over writing songs, if a mute point here as they continue to do the unexpected and lead your ears through a journey further down into their vision of hell. They are more technical sound than you might expect with the off-time stuff they throw at you. The tribal nature of the drums and the more spoken vocal performance on the title track to create an almost industrial feel that is thrown against hard-core. I like the woozy ebb and flow of this crazy song. 

The last song hammers you with a sludged-out riff that has a raw noisy edge. The vocals are primarily a low guttural death-like growl. Though not being a band to find themselves easily pinned down there is a flourish of just screaming jabbing into the song. This is the first time on the album that things fall into the bounds of what everyone else is doing though it does take a take for the weird. I will give this album a 9.5, I think they are onto something fairly original by using a wider range of stylistic choices than most. 

pst53