UBOA : "All the Dead Melt Down as Rain"

 This EP came out back in June, so just catching up with what is going on here. The first track drones on the ambient noise it invokes in its storytelling in a manner not unlike Ethel Cane's more experimental works. It is more glitched out with an industrial aggression lurking in the noise. It is not until midway through the track that it feels like there are intentions of becoming a song. It is dark, so I appreciate that. I discovered this album while looking for more industrial music, so it could be adjacent to that

The second track is pretty much just screaming and glitched-out electrical noise. Words are being muttered underneath it, but there is nothing in the way of songwriting taking place, making it something to be endured more than enjoyed. "Prole Ana" is another spoken word noise track, with the narrative more defined this time, and it eventually winds it's way into becoming the first track that feels like an actual song is . The vocal melody forms something sonically similar to Jesu. It swells into a more dissonant atmosphere that is still effective amid the screaming.

This album was written during a disorienting illness, so they have successfully captured that feeling. Sometimes things are just a wave of sound, perhaps with screaming buried deep within it; these are not musical moments at all. The last track has a faint piano line being toyed with. It is more musical than the previous track. It twinkles around like this until more ambient waves of noise wash over it rather than turning it into a piece of music that does something or goes somewhere that is not just an explosion of mindless noise. I will give this a 5, it is listenable, but barely. If you like noise, you might hear something similar by sticking your head in a haunted microwave. 

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PST439

Full of Hell + Andrew Nolan :"Scraping the Divine"

 

You should know who Full of Hell is. Their collaborator is more obscure.  Andrew Nolan is from the industrial noise underground and was in a band called Column of Heaven. It takes a few listens for some of these songs to sink in. The first one makes sense then, it takes a more cautious ear to pick this chaos apart. It might also require headphones as the programmed drums are not loud enough but the vocals are in your face. "Burdened By the Solar Mass" is even more chaotic. It would be great to play while falling into hell. Justin Broadrick's appearance is obviously on "Sphere of Saturn" as it takes on his vocal drone, which is lopped through effects. My favorite moment so far. 

"Hemlock Gnosis' is Dylan Walker screaming over ambiance. More sound than song, which is the direction this album was bound to lean in given the experimental nature of what is unfolding. At this point, I had to take a break and listen to the actual new one from Full of Hell to get some perspective. Now a few days later I am clicking on "Blessed Anathema" and its drone is more pleasing to my ears. However 'Facing the Divide' is more noisy than not. 'Approaching the Monolith" is basically a noise interlude that I am not counting for the purpose of this review. "Extinguished Glow" is much more of a song than that one though. However it is more ambient and has some cool sounds, but that puts us back at sound vs song. 

"Common Miracles" finds his screaming work better over a more industrial pound. "Irradiated Sands" feels like it is an extension of the previous song. The last song "Paralytic Lineage' is a more deliberate churning pulse. The growling is lower giving it a more Godflesh feel. I will give this one an 8, since it is not always song focused and things get too noisy at times for my tastes, I prefer the direction Full Of Hell went on their most recent album to this, I like Godflesh, but I own their albums so I do not need bands that sound like them. 

Scraping The Divine by Full of Hell and Andrew Nolan pst603

Gothtober- Pharmakon : " Maggot Mass"

 

After a five-year hiatus, this project is back with its raging machines. Things are as dark and dismal as ever. Her vocals start off as more brooding, though you are expecting the screaming temper tantrum to come crashing down at any moment.  The eight-and-a-half-minute opening track stomps into a drone. The noise-ridden edges of the composition are sometimes more dominant than others. The problem things like this can sometimes have with my ears is they tend to focus more on the sounds being created than on writing a song. 

"Methanal Doll" would be the album's lead single, not because it is hookier than the other songs, but because it is the one she made a video for.. Her vocals are in more of a coarse throaty snarl. The machine-like hammering of the drum programming is very deliberate. I do like the use of effects on her voice.  The lyrics are more easily discerned from what I have heard from her in the past, the arrangments tend to just pound in one direction.  "Buyer's Remorse" uses overdriven bass synths for her to rant against. It is almost more like an interlude than a song. 

"Splendid Isolation" finds a return to the banging of machines, though with a more abstract groove than the first two tracks. Her voice has more effects on it which creates the feel that she is singing more than she is, but it sounds cool. Two minutes in things begin to go off the rails and turn more towards the noise side of the equation, though her voice tries to guide, it. This feels like she came up with some sounds that would have been cool to write a song with, but never got around to writing it. "Oiled Animals" feels more like Current 93, as her vocal part is more spoken and things are possessed by a darker minimalist ambiance. The album's first dynamics begin as things are pounded with a more intense feel as things progress. She goes into more of a familiar scream that aligns with what I remember her doing in the past. I will give this one an 8, not enough songwriting, but some cool dark sound compensates. Released on Sacred Bones.

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Gothtober- Meat Beat Manifesto & Merzbow : "Extinct'

 I like Meat Beat Manifesto. I respect Merzbow. I was hopeful going into this, but once I pressed play I realized what I signed up for. I should have known this would be more sound-focused than song-focused because the first track is over twenty minutes long. The noise wrestles against the beats for dominance, putting them at the more extreme edge of industrial music. Five minutes in I began to have my doubts, aside from the layers of distortion shifting there is no real change until ten minutes in when the noise begins to win out, though the beat is maintaining a steady drone. The feedback ebbs a little to give the programmed drum tracks room to breathe at times.

 Playing this at high volumes would surely cause hearing loss, and has the finesse of sitting in the laundromat and listening to the dryers churn. 15 minutes in is when the first real shift occurs that feels like something that might be referred to as a song. It shifts its spin cycle in the levels of pummelling which is the most modulation we find til the end of the track. "Burner" is even more abrasive at its onset. Nothing happens aside from the droning sonic torture until ten minutes in, Then it sort of breaks down a bit into something that sounds like electric cars catching on fire from salt water.  

The third track of this album that would be single if things did not drone on for so long is the radio edit of the first song which trims things down to a more manageable not quite five minutes, that is not as abrasive as the first track, Still, you could not put this on at a club and not close the place down. I will give this a 6, I would prefer a new Meat Beat Manifesto album not this experiment in performance art. 

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November is Doom - Body Void : "Atrocity Machine"

 If the world was not going to end in a few months I might be more concerned about the growing problem with American metal. It seems that these hipsters who invaded the scene back in the early 2000s are now a bunch of virtue-signaling babies who make metal that is really them squalling as they soil their diapers. They put the fact that they represent a social group and to not like them means you are not inclusive. They do this with little regard for actually being worth a shit. The first actual song on Body Void is just distorted pounding that drones on with screamed vocals that sound heavy at first but then it really goes nowhere. That does not fly here. I do not give a fuck about politics or what rights you think you should or should not care about, after all, it's a smoke screen from the important issues like can you play your instrument or write a song. No one cares what your pronouns are and to put them on your Bandcamp page tells me where your priorities lie and they are not with music. 

It gets progressively worse because once the shock of their dense noisy sound wears off you are left with a band that plays at a sluggish drone because their musical ability is sub-par to the point of almost being just noise. The only dynamic shift is going from one obnoxious ambient noise to the next. Some of the sloppiest blast beats you have ever heard go down as the song climaxes/.  Noise sludge would be the better categorization of their sub-genre. Feedback squeals out from every turn. A minute into "Cop Show" finds another sonic battery that feels like a waste of my time. The snarl of the vocals is the worst vocal I have heard since the Body.  This album is painful to endure and it's taking everything in me to press through it. The total lack of direction is almost as appalling as the lack of originality. 

The feral blast beats of "Divine Violence", just sound like their instruments got thrown down a wind tunnel. They do capture a few harrowing sounds in the layers of guitar here, but it is wasted in the plodding crunch this song wanders off in. I can not believe I have to endure eight more minutes of it. If this was grindcore at least I would only have to tolerate minute bursts of this. There are some interesting sounds around the eight-minute mark, but not interesting enough to force you to endure this. The album closes with the ten-minute title track.  It is dissonant and cavernous, but those things alone can not carry the song. Six and a half minutes in and the song dissolves into harsh noise. I will round this down to a 4 it is one of the worst albums I have heard in some time. 

Model/Actriz : "Dogsbody"

This band out of Brooklyn released their new album out back in February, but this is the time of year when I catch up on this sort of thing, being the post-punk I missed out . Their overall sound sound  reminds me of a harder hitting Xiu Xiu. They carry an abrasive clanging to the post-industrial beats. The opening track makes it hard to tell what direction they are going in from here. Then the second song veers into a more frantic lo-fi indie take on post-punk. Vocalist Cole Haden, mutters the lyrics with desperation. "Crossing Guard" keeps the emotional tension going, but the more overt electronic nature, gives it the drone of dance music. Judging by the lyrics and the way they are emoted at the very least Cole might be gay. I appreciate the fact they are not trying to market themselves as a queer band and are just making music. 

While "Crossing Guard " and "Slate " felt like they ran together to become one song. "Divers" switches the mood to become a more distinct entity. It has a more minimalist ambiance, that focuses on a sound more than being a song. "Amaranth" carries a more noise fringed catharsis. Things are more intense and the vocals have a purpose, but it continues to find the band toying with experimental sounds, rather than writing songs that are a compelling listen.  "Pure Mode" has more form and function as it explodes and contracts, into something unnerved that still makes sense with it's aggressive underpinnings. Lyrically it is a little more obtuse, I can appreciate the parts where he is screaming as it feels heartfelt. 

Things continue down a helter skelter path of angular sounds bouncing toward your ears on "Maria". The vocals seem like they are a part of a different song than what is going on here. I can see the hushed approach they take on "Sleepless" matching the lyrical content of the song. The last song is stripped down and almost indie folk , which is a stark contrast to the bulk of the album, though it proves they can write a song when they put their mind to it. I will give this album a 7.5, it works for what it is, I do not really need what it is since I already listen to Xiu Xiu and the coat of industrial noise they throw over it is not dark enough for my personal tastes, but younger audiences perhaps not as savvy to this might find it more pleasing, so the score is based on the merit of the art.

Lana Del Rabies : "STREGA BEATA"

 This time of year finds me catching up on all the music that passed me by under the radar. Often they are albums like the third release from this solo project that passes under my radar. "Strega Beata" came out back in March. I was looking for industrial albums I might have missed, and this name keeps coming up. Though highly experimental and based on electronics, I am not sure I would define this project as industrial even given the role the percussion plays in the second song. Drone and ambiance seem to be the driving factors when capturing the mood of these songs. This is her third album under this moniker so, three albums in you can assume she has fully realized where she wants this project to go. The sound is draped in such a sonic quality it threatens to smother everything in its haze.

Where are the industrial beats when you need them,? This is the question I find myself asking when it comes to the song "Master". Song also begins to become an objective term, as these pieces take on the form of ambient art rather than songs. "Mother" does not do much to really shift my perspective, though the dynamics do take a turn into a more intense noise-ridden pound. With things not getting there until after the four-minute mark. It is the first thing that sounds industrial to me. The rest of the song finds it ebbing back down into a more opaque ambiance. "Grace the Teacher" also wallows in the incorporeal for longer than it feels it needs to. However the payoff is minimal, as it hovers over a stagnant cello line.

 "Mourning" works better in terms of the electronics used to paint a swathe of electronic noise. Her vocals gain more substance, and her lyrics are articulated with purpose. Does the song warrant being nine minutes long when it wanders out into a bleak nothingness? Not really, I think the impact of where it does go into a more intense refrain could have worked with more economy in the arrangement just as well.   The is more of a backbone to "Hallowed is the Earth" as the beat is at least there to provide movement.  Though the vocal narrative sounds like a spoken word sampled bite. So it lingers about but does not progress. 

What I do like about this project is the darkness it tends to reflect in. Things delve deeper into this with "Reckoning". Her chanted vocals are more effective in the context of this song, which holds a more cinematic quality. At times it reminds me of Diamanda Galas. Her screaming on "Apocalypse Fatigue" works really well to contrast the otherwise languid simmer of the mood. She also delivers some impressive vocals on the last song, I just wish, they were given a more structured environment with which to thrive.  This factors into the reason that has inspired me to give this album a 7. More than fair considering droning music is not always my thing, but I like the dark places she emotes from here. 

Sprain : "the Lamb as Effigy"

 

I review so much music here a band is bound to slip my mind. Such is the case with these guys. I was looking over the inner webs to see what punk I might have missed out on over the course of the year, when I came across their name. Little did I realize that I reviewed their last album. I wasn't punk, and neither is this album. The opening song reminds me more of King Missile. The vocals and the disjointed manner in which the angular guitar parts bang around before colliding with your ear drums. The second song finds things becoming more confrontational as the vocals are screamed before falling back into a lazy croon. I like choice of dynamics they employ here, it's like grunge having a nervous breakdown. 

"Privilege of Being" assaults' your senses with all kinds of noise used in a more ambient manner. The vocals are a drunken mess of slurred musings though minimalist even amid their worse intentions. It's a difficult song to get through even in it's most cohesive moments. "Margin for Error" is missing the mark at way more than just a margin. At 24 minutes long it is an exercise is excessive drone . It is not until eight and a half minutes in that it builds into something, and that something it regrettably short lived. Then at eleven and a half minutes it seems like the tedious song is about to go some where and that marks yet another false alarm. When Swans do this sort of thing there is more of a pay off and they make it more interesting along the way. Ten minutes later things try to work themselves up into something more musical intense , but the noise tips the scales. 

Things begin to converge back into something closer to a song on "the Commercial Nude". The vocals follow the narrative of a fragile melody. Odd noises chirp in the back ground. To think there was someone who heard this and thought

"Oh, yeah that would be a great album to include as one of the best punk albums of the year so far" 

They do offer to pound your ear drums in a manner not unlike Swans, Xiu Xiu or Sonic Youth, but there is nothing punk about it. The next time they decide to crash the party with an actual song is "the Reclining Nude". This one shows they are capable of writing actual songs when they feel like it, which makes the fact they are just toying with you and wasting your time with the other noise they try to pass off as songs. Perhaps it's the fact the piano is forming the spine of this song, that things are held together in a more melodic manner. Not that it always keeps things on track as even this song wanders off the rails, but does so with more musical sensibilities, to create an artful jam. 

"We Think so Ill of You" is another exercise in what this album could have been. It has dynamics and jazzy touches to the more noise battered grooves it creates. "God, or Whatever You Call it" starts off on the wrong foot, with too much ambient noise piddling around . Five minutes in the chaotic guitars begin fiddling around and the song starts. It is another almost 25 minutes , which I am unsure if the journey is going to be worthwhile , as they did not prove themselves capable of writing something at this scope earlier. The vocals are more in the spoken rant side of what they do. Half way into , things begin to collapse into the buzz of noise, with disjointed guitar clawing it's way out. At the twelve minute mark it breaks down to the point that it is a new song. Fourteen minutes in things erupt with noise that is almost scary in it's shrill shriek. I will give this album a 6 , when things come together sometimes they work well, it's the sprawling waste of time some of the more tedious moments punish you with that soured me.

The Lamb As Effigy by Sprain

Non Serviam : " Death Ataraxia"

 

This project from France is crazy as fuck. It makes blackish metal that is spastic in it's flirtations with electronic weirdness. Like most extreme music the sting of the first song has to wear off before you can figure out what the hell is going on. It is very layered and glitchy with the use of the sounds gathered here. 'World Eater" finds Colin Marston from Krallice  playing synths here. He also lends them a guitar solo. Though the sound overtakes every thing and the song it self devolves into chaos. There is more noise than song at as "World Easter' descends in lunacy. 

Sometimes a riff manages to break through the dense swirl of screams and croaks to form something of a song. The use of samples does help break things up and I am fine with the guitars churning under them. Dilek Sarmis contributes her voice to the dark smolder of " Astres". This song is allowed more room to breathe and works a great deal better, though her voice is relegated to moaning in the background. Ten minutes of this is a bit excessive, though I appreciate what they are going for. 

The titles tracks floats around less metallic waters, than the previous song, there are sung vocals that hang back in the mix until things go haywire. Much like the previous song it drags on a little but too long. There is a feeling that remind me of Lifelover on this one. There are moments when they sound less like drugged out jamming and more like songs, the use of samples being one of their stronger sonic suits. The albums 11 minute closer, does drift off into noise four and a half in, but the drums hold things together. The vocals are less scream and black metal sounding as the album progresses. Eight minutes in things begin to build back into more of a beating for your ear drums. I like what this album does I will give it an 8.5, as it leans in the direction of sounds over songs. 

Xiu Xiu : " Ignore Grief"

Why do some relationships works, when in the dating phase you are stuck on one idea of what someone is and you are either adding to or taking away from that altar in your head to them. This is not much different that the relationship between artist and fans. Bands often  hook you in with one release that touches you and then from there every thing is measured against it. With these guys it's "Dead God I Hate Myself" but always solidified them as a band I was really into. Since that time, there have been albums that touch on what I love about them, yet who they are is degrading into noisy experimentation rather than emotionally drive songs of bi polar depravity. This album finds Angela and Jamie splitting the album in half when it comes to vocal duties. It opens with crashing industrial noise. Not really a song, but sounds being used to create art. The colors they use are dark enough to b e pleasing to my ears, but do not go anywhere.

Dave Kendrik from Sparks and Devo fame has joined the band. Kendrick is normally a drummer, so I am not sure what he is really doing as there are more moments of noise than music that requires a beat. When we get to the "Little Richard" song I am not sure what is going on. I have a feeling that for a great deal of this album the instruments were turned on before being tossed down the stairs as a boom mic captured it all. In their minds they are making industrial music and modern classical music. I am not sure who they are using as a point of reference for either/ Lyrically they claim to follow themes like a mother selling her child into prostitution, but the narrative is about as opaque as "Eraserhead "The jazz elements that begin to creep in work the better than anything else in play on this album. 

Not sure if "Border Factory' is a song or not, but it does make sense that they think this is classical as it is more atmospheric and less noise focused than the first half of the album. This became a very hard album to review, as it became more about sounds and less about songs. That is often the barometer I use to gauge quality. With that said this album is being rounded up to a 6, because of the dark mood it captures. If it was not for that I might be prone to think it was garbage.

Diamanda Galás : "Broken Gargoyles"

 

Originally used as part of an art installation , the rule here is we are just listening to how the song stand on their own, when you strip away any pretenses that are attached to them. The theme is the inspiration taken from images of gargoyles that were left battered from World War I, given how things do not change and the locations of this kind of destruction simply relocate then it is a fitting theme for 2022.   One thing that struck me is how minimal these arrangements are for someone who takes their voice to bombastic extremes. She can almost be thought of as the goth Yoko Ono in this regard. One thing that you can say is consistent with her work is that it is dark, satanic wolf howls as it progresses. There is a more tormented sound to the second piece. It dips now into a more whispered wonder land of whistling noises. 

Her vocal experimentation is perhaps disturbing if you have never heard her before, but fans or those familiar with what she does have heard similar within the context of songs or performances that were more structured. There are different forms of sound manipulation and feedback than we have heard from her, if you are fan of Mike Patton's more stripped down and noisy vocal stylings this sort of thing might not feel as aliens to you. Are these the souls of Goblins being roasted by the shelling I under as there is a thundering noise in the background that could just be breathy on the microphone with the EQ or effects applied to it, as the more robotic voice filter used in the first piece makes another appearance toward the end of the second piece. 

I am a fan of Galas, but this is a trip to a museum that turned out to be an abstract haunted house. You might feel compelled to listen to this for an experience, but these are not songs that you will want to listen to more than once and even then, I had to break them up in ten-minute intervals to avoid the tedium, so based off songs and measuring this album against the standards we have for songs I will give it a 2.5. I find the darkness conveyed her to the really only point of redemption.  

Gothtober-Haunted Horses : " The Worst Has Finally Happened"

 I was a big fan of this band's 2013 album; they were a few steps ahead of the industrial revival. They have expanded to a trio, so that should provide more depth of sound.  The first song is more of an intro as it drones on the same swathe of sonics for almost three minutes without the song really going anywhere, though I appreciate the mood they capture here. The second song kinda of works off the throb established in the first piece that opened the album. "Pig" finds things getting more abrasive and aggressive. They have captured some cool sounds but are they writing good songs? There is some effort made to give the vocals some breathing room to create verses. This works for what they are doing though not enough for me to think "I can't wait to hear that song again" 

The vocals fight to make themselves known on "Window Sung", but it doesn't really go anywhere from there. The pace picks to a more relentless punkish hammering on "Thee Worst" , but the song does not go past the one dimensional they began to build upon. There are some impressive sounds that capture tension and darkness, but it is where they go with them that matters when it comes to song writing. Sure "Swarms" is dense and gritty, but when limited to a singular pulse, it is nor much more than noise with some pained mumbling under it. The chaos is heavy here, but is that what makes for a song that is worth listening to more than once. I have never thought "Hmm, I need to heard some more echolocation devices being fucked with". 

There more organic drumming does help the overall sound, but there is little in the way of groove to provide a direction even to songs like "Thorns".  It once again finds mumbled vocals under a distorted drone. The drums start off "Golden Stairs" in a more interesting manner. The vocals do not have more melody to them but more emotion. They do not compromise their dark noisy attack, but the way the sounds are arranged gives enough structure for this to feel more like a song. I do like the slow build because at least it goes somewhere. This goes to show you do not have to conform to conventional songwriting to write a song. A burly bass line and syncopated drums lay the groundwork for " Cold Medecine" . By this point the slurred vocals are more obligatory that having much form and function. Alien groans prove the pulse for the last song. The vocals are easier to understand with this one, though just kind of fill the pace left by the crunch of the machine-like crashing beats. I will round this one down to a 7 as there are cool sounds, and i can appreciate the dark dismal moods, but there needs to be more thought put into the songwriting which was a disappointment to me as I expected more in that regard.  

Scarcity : " Aveilut"

 

The fact this band is on the Flenser was enough to make me want to check them out. They are a project from Brooklyn. They refer to themselves as black metal and in some way, this is true if you are thinking of what black metal out of Brooklyn might be prone to sound like. The first song is mainly drone with some screaming under it, normally I would not consider it a song, but they committed almost eight minutes to it so they were intending on it being more than an intro. One of the blackest of black metal things about this album is the god-awful production. There is a scraping rumble to the second song. It feels more like A Place to Bury Strangers fucking around like Sonic Youth. It does get more metallic. Abrasive in the white noise they abuse you with. Their atmosphere is enough to give you a headache, 

If Liturgy took things a step further in the noise department, we would be hearing this sort of thing. But they care a little more about songs, so use restrain where this project just goes for it. Like King Midas, rather than gold everything they touch turns into a dissonant drone. The third "song" is more droning noise with screaming set against it. The drums are somewhere in the mix. The clanging dissonance of this chaos can be grating. They employ different sounds but do similar things with them. There is a slight industrial hint to the swathe of buzzing sound that cannot really be called music.  

By the time we get to the last song with has more in common with the narcotic pulse of synth wave, there is little that can be regarded as a song or music, there are abstract sounds being tortured. In scoring this album, I have to consider what is music and are they making it. If you like droning abrasive noise, then this might click with you, depending on what drugs you are doing at the moment. There is really nothing here that touches upon what I listen for in music so I will give this one a 4. 

3.2

Gotober- Dridge : "Curing"

 When  this band from Philly commits to death rock, they get it right. More gritty and crude than Atriarch, but in a similar sonic zip code in their marriage of metal with goth. Its done in the dirt back alley way and not how say Type O Negative retained the more dark wave elegance. But death rock never had that except in the rare moments Christian Death put the needle down and got dramatic. The drummer is singing which to me is always a weird dynamic. He is pretty solid when it comes to switching from the more emotive moan of goth to the snarling dirty crust punk vocal. Where the first song has the punk recklessness, on the second song they groove on this before , stomping into an angrier more metallic crunch. 

Once the floodgates of aggression are opened it is hard to get that cat back in the bag. "Boomerang" is tightly syncopated. The groove falls somewhere between Helmet and Celtic Frost. I like what they are going here. Not sure I would call it doom , but it rocks with a healthy stomp to the guts . "Webb" splits the difference ,as it falls back into the post-punk disco groove with the hi-hat, but has equal amounts of angry snarl to it as well. The death rock pout of the vocals is a call and response to the more angry vocal. The distortion is very dense creating an abrasive wall around the song at times. " Cut" falls prey to a more chaotic mania cast over the song.

Things get really interesting on "Meddle" , it is angry but comes from a more Black Flag like place, except angular and more primal, so I guess that is more like early Rollins Band, which also works for me. The sonic scope of what goes down occupies a good place in my ears . Around the five minute mark of this  9 minute monster things get more metal in their attack,  that is before they back off into the more death rock ambiance, including the morose musing of the vocals . "Figure it out" reminds me of "Filth Pig" era Ministry if covered by the Jesus Lizard.  I will round this up to a 9.5, a marriage of noise rock, sludge and death rock is always a wonderful thing. 

Primitive Man : "Immersion"

To their credit these guys continue to evolve. The first time I heard them was on their 2013 album "Scorn". They struck me as a sludge band that was rough around the edges. They have gone past the Eyehategod mark and now digging into death doom. Dissonant and ugly death doom, but that is what is feel like. It is bleak , but does not have the mournful sense of doom.The vocals are in a lower almost gurgled death growl. They get more atmospheric and less oppressive for the second song. These guys are so heavy, it often feels like they are throwing sounds at you rather than trying to write a song that you will want to listen to again. Here is some ear torture, I hope you like droning noise with a growl to it.

By the third song I am lost It seems like it is the previous song. At this point I have given up on trying to review this like an album and I am going to just reate my experience listening to it since there are no real musical properties to give my views on. There are two minutes and twent seconds of annoying nosie, that I went back and listened to to make sure I have not missed any musical elements. There are none. This is just an interlude. The squeal at you with more feed back before flogging you with distortion and calling it "Foul" aside from the second song this comes closest to being a song if you consider slaps of distortion in your face along with howling at you a song. The drummer is not really doing shit but beating along to something so slow anyone could to it if they can count to three. Some higher notes to occur along with other crashing noises.

The drummer is required to do a little more work on the last sound exploration. It rumbles like the others things of this nature they have done. The vocal are just like all the other times they do this . Not dynamics. No melodies . Anti melodic. Is it heavy, sure. When reviewing the Kruelty album I said this is the heaviest album of the year as if it is heavier than this you are not going to want to listen to . That prophecy is coming true. I will give this album a 5. It only scored that high because I was ok with the second song and the first one was decent. It is mindlessly heavy.

Lingua Ignota : "Caligula"

You might have heard Kristen Hayter on albums by the Body or Full of Hell. I can tell you right now I am going to be a hard sell on this because not only to I own albums by Jarboe, but I also own albums by Diamanda Galas. So freaking out and screaming is nothing new. The choral piece she opens with  works , though it makes me think if St Vincent formed a multi tracked choir the results might be similar. She gets into the darker Diamanda Galas side of what she does n the second song. The screaming freak out she has will appeal to fans of the body. But Diamanda Galas did it 25 years ago already.It gets noisy and doesn't even form a song. For all the musical training she has had, she some of the layers of vocals are not in key. This makes the harmonies feel awkward. 4 minutes into "Butcher of the World " we get actual music. When she focuses on making music rather than noise it's interesting. Though this is going to be one of those album's like the Body where the noise is obnoxious and I have to  stomach through it. Though her voice is no where near as annoying as the guy from the Body.

She has great song titles and ballsy lyrics, so I appreciate some of her ideas. Execution is another thing. The synths when they shown up are purposefully over driven from the mix. I think some of the dynamics could have been more effective if not run through the filter of noise. She is working with "noise artists" on this album so it's all intentional. In 1987 there was an artist who made a stir  New York art galleries with s a piece call the "Piss Christ" where the artist took a crucifix and submersed it in a jar of his piss. This is the musical equivalent of that. She can put some power behind her voice, and might really be able to use it, but it is squandered on these minimalist jaunts that are pissed on by noise. Thing do get darker for "If the Poison Won't Take You My dogs Will". I think when the screaming comes in on this song it is more effective. So I am not opposed to it. I just want it to be well done.

 There more of a dirge like feel to "Days of Tears and Mourning" the screamed chaos of the more black metal vocals work within reason here.  "Sorrow Sorrow Sorrow" is a piano piece that is rather sedate. "Spite Alone Holds Me Aloft" falls into the same self destructive pattern that other songs have in regards to the souring of dynamics in order to create noise."Fucking Death Dealer" is almost a baroque folk song. There is no noise, just a song, it works, imagine that. There is some noise at the edges of the discordant sorrowful "I am the Beast". Her vocal runs are a little Diamanda, but that is ok. When this songs builds up into heavier chaos it is done in a way that makes more sense. There are some good songs and good sounds on this album. It is not all obnoxiously jarring, but 40 percent of it is so I will give this album a 6. It comes out July 19th on Profound Lore.

Gothtober - Looking Back in Anger at Swan's "Filth"

If you are a regular reader then you know Swans are one of my favorite bands. They evolved into something more akin to goth, but even at their every beginning they were still pretty dark. The 1983 debut of Swans in very influential . It set into motion industrial with bands like Godflesh owing a great deal to them.While though of as a classic, I am going to take a look and ask "Well is it actually any good ? How has it stood the test of time?" First off the opener sets the tone for the album as it  is dark and uncompromising. The drums pound out one hammering beat with guitars to get noisy behind it allowing the bass to hold the meat of the song together. Gira was chanting "flex your muscles" over and over. The next song "Big Strong Boss" is a more angular pound, with guitars in favor of more noise than melody. Even Gira's chanting seems a little less focused here. They allow the drums to slowly fade into "Black Out" . The guitars follow with a more subtle clang. The bass which has been controlling the songs with it/s thump takes more of a back seat. Gira' is ranting more. There is more of a rhyme and reason to what he is doing than the song before this.

Their is more of a tribal drum feel to "Power for Power". Every thing works really well and this is the best song yet there is a dark ambiance to it. The vocals make sense and it shows the path they will eventually go down. "Freak" is more of an interlude. "Right Wrong" is another song that works off an unhinged dissonance as it clangs at you. The vocal chant is repetitive and follows the march of the drums. I think this does sound like what they do it's just a crudely early version of it. This album is the neanderthal version of what they are going to evolve into. There is a thick distortion to "Thank You" . The drums are more syncopated and not as tribal. Gira takes on a more aggressive howl. "Weakling" is the song they have been most likely to play from this era in recent years and it works in with the newer jammy drone of what they did most recently.  Gira's vocals are more of a spoken rant. I like how the organized chaos of this song pulls itself together.


It's almost hard to call "Gang" a song so I have always thought of it as a weird outro as it's just drums and what sounds like drugged out chanting. So I'll give this album a 7.5, each album got progressively better as the band went along and started adding more melody. At the time when this came out it might have been ground breaking as Tom Waits had yet to really dip into the weird at this point leaving the likes of Captain Beefheart and Yoko Ono to toy with noise and challenge the listener in this way.

Uniform : "The Long Walk"

This project out of New York has a lot going for them in the fact they have added Liturgy drummer Greg Fox. They opener up their new album with a great deal of sonic power and intensity. By the second song it's still pretty clear that this is going to be one of their heaviest offerings yet and Fox's drumming is only adding to that. There is more of a punk feel to "Inhuman Condition" , most of this is due to the yelled vocal. By the time we get to "Found" which opens with a mother fucking mean ass riff, it's obvious this is going to be the band's most metallic offering yet. However it's by the point that you also realize these vocals are just obnoxious as hell. If vocals are something you tune out anyway when you are head banging then this might not bother you as much. The blown out riffs get so rumbling they almost make me over look this fact as well. Almost.

Purposefully lo-fi and ringing with feedback, they relent very little on "Transubstantiation" until they drop out and it becomes ranting over the pulse of a bass frequency. When they kick back in, despite the vocal annoyance it's undeniable its powerful. Its hard to tell where punk begins and industrial strength sludge ends. "Alone In the Dark' keeps the momentum going, but the fact the vocals are little more than the same indiscriminate yelling, makes it begin to lose some of the luster. The riff to "Headless Eyes" compensates for any and all finesse that the vocals lack. The double bass on this song steamrolls everything else. This is the only way they can make things really work with the vocal handicap. When they do not have the benefit of this kind of riff , then on a song like "Anointing  of the Sick", where the vocal ranting is even more tedious it becomes unnerving. Half way into this song I am thinking "God, is this over yet".

The album ends with "Peaceable Kingdom".  They slow down and there just doesn't feel like there is enough direction for them to let up on the more relentless side of their sound.Despite the terrible vocals and the last song that lacks direction, I'll give this album an 8, on the merit of how well it works despite some of these factors that play against it. If you are a fan of these guy and tone deaf enough to ignore the vocals then this will blow you away. It feels like this is for punk with an appreciation metal rather than a metal album though it is heavy.

Black Metal History Month- Dagger Lust : "Siege Bondage Adverse to the Godhead"

This is the first album from this band out of Portland. They try to be so dense and intense it threatens the definition of what is music. Any where you look it says their lyrics are about sexual depravity. While that sounds great, they are screaming in English and you can not under a word they are saying. Mostly blast beats and the dual screams of lower death metal gurgle and a higher vocal that sounds like they are clearing their throat. Its a good thing their songs are short as it is really hard to take more than a couple minutes at a time as each song seems to be more chaotic than the one before. Very raw to the point of the distortion and feed back causes power violence buzz or electric fuzz. "Black Blood in Mockery" is unable to distinguish it self from the song that came before it and continues to be a blur of noise.Almost to the point of it being hard to really find any redeeming quality.

They allow a bass line to ring out and provide the first breathing room on " Perverse Divine" . This is the bands first musical moment. It shows less is more from these guys. You are of course waiting for them to take a chainsaw to it. The blast back into what they have been doing previous to this on the song that follows, which at this point is like naming your farts for me to list song names. It had more in common with dropping a washing machine down a stair well than it does Darkthrone. It is dark enough and blasting enough to qualify as black metal. They bring it back down to trying to tune their bass on the second to the last song. Yelling the vocals more than growling them. You still can't make out anything they say. The title track is more of the same that we have already gotten from these guys.

So do you like noise ? I prefer music. I'll around this album down to a 2. It might be the lowest score I have giving a band. If you like noise, I would suggest that while you can round this album up to whatever you want you are more likely to benefit from sniffing glue and beating your self win the head with a hammer.

Portal :"ION"

Things are getting weird. This is my first time sitting down and giving a solid listen to one of the albums from this Australian project albums. I have heard lots of good things, and caught a song here and there, but never immersed my self in them. I just listened to the new Tribulation, which crossed from death metal into a more accessible sound. These guys have said fuck accessible we are going straight for crazy as god damn hell.It opens with noise and then bursts into noisy discordant chaos that can be linked to the DNA of death metal. The mix keeps this from soundings as dense as most death metal is. They are technical and precise while being all over the place. If you though Deathspell Omega gets nuts well these guys are further out into the mouth of madness.

It sounds like the vocal where recorded backwards. It sounds like breath is being sucked back in rather than forcibly expelled. Vocally this makes for less powerful growls and more of a breathy mutter. I find myself asking if this music is meant to be engaged or endured. The musical quality begins to get obscured on "Husk". Big on blast beats that are whipped out in a spastic manner. By the time we get to "Phreqs" things are beginning to run together and sound similar. I am also less impressed by the acrobatics and waiting for more song development. Noise is a big part of what they do, it takes up the first minute of the blast fest that is "Crone". I can still appreciate the extreme nature of what they do, I need more dynamics. The expand and retract of this bands revolves around noise. I like the chant of "pray for sickness" , but I need a little more than that to hook me in. I had to give "Revault of Volts" a second listen, because it went by in a blur. Only marginally more impressed by the song than the blur.

"Spores" finds the band continuing to grow more abrasive and noise ridden. "Phantom" finds them blasting even faster than before. When it comes to the closing song "Olde Guarde" I wonder who they can keep this up for ten minutes. Songs at this speed tend to be shorter since you have already raced to the finish line. They slow a little the three minute mark, but the guitars keep buzzing like a hornets nest.Then it delves down into a darker and more minimal passage that sounds like a guitar being played while someone drowns. I'll give this album a 6, I respect what they are doing it's just not something I need to listen to more than once. If you like both noise and death metal in a blender then this is more your speed.This is being released on Profound Lore