Blood Rhythms - Civil War

Album: Civil War

Artist: Blood Rhythms

Label: NO PART OF IT

Catalogue no: None

Tracklist:

1. Closure
2. Sick Skin
3. Locked Away
4. Paris Window
5. The Face
6. Alchemy & Grief (Parts I & II)

Yes, this is loud, experimental in the extreme, avant-garde, noise ambient, industrial, angry, anguished, atmospheric, violent, rhythmic, as well as right in your face and up close, but a close listen will reveal that there’s a lot more going on than meets the ear. Saying that it doesn’t really want to slot into any neat little pigeonholes either, preferring instead to present itself on its own merits. Blood Rhythms is led by veteran experimental musician Arvo Zylo (along with a host of collaborators) and so, armed with all sorts weird and wonderful materials, presents us with the results of this huge experiment/collaboration.

How to begin? ‘Closure’ is a big fat rasp, ripping and shimmering, a blast blaring out of some fogbound landscape, ready to rip skin. A voice and feedback presage the arrival of some demonic entity, scouring and scorching, denuding all before it. ‘Sick Skin’ is pure flesh-ripping anguish, slabs of high-pitched squeaks and resonances interspersed with microsilences, attacks that burrow deep into the brain and turn it into mush. A heavily distorted voice intrudes, exuding malice and anger, before evolving into a less wholesome rhetoric. Closing out side one (see below) is ‘Locked Away’, beginning with a lean, spare slice of death ambient (de)composed of crushing percussion and feedback, before morphing into a vast behemoth of granular noise and acidic bitterness, a kaleidoscopic vortex of bile and rancour.

Like I say, though, it’s not all noise and tortured electronics, as is testified to by ‘Paris Window’ – which begins with a mournful, and thoroughly Gallic, trumpet figure before a metallic sheet of noise, akin to a constant crash of cymbals, fades in and overwhelms like a tsunami. This is followed by ‘The Face’, a Suicide electronic rhythm accompanied by some shouty vox, leading to a free-for-all blast of a ‘chorus’ which is in turn replaced by tribal industrial drumming and what sounds like an industrial-capacity vacuum-cleaner. This track also smells of Crash Worship to this reviewer, which is no bad thing I feel.

And then we’re back to the nuclear radiation of blanket cellular implosion with ‘Alchemy & Grief Part 1’, an earth-stripping concussion wave of concentrated malignancy. ‘Alchemy & Grief Part II’ is all industrial crunch and distortion, garnished with wretched vocals and crashing metallic interjections.

When this was sent to me I had no idea what I was letting myself in for – the description in the blurb covers only part of what’s included here and, if you go to the Blood Rhythms Bandcamp page for this release it doesn’t really enlighten you much further, as it only has ‘The Face’ available to listen to at this moment. If I’d judged solely from that (which no reviewer would do anyway) I’d have missed out on all the textures and nuances that liberally spice this album. It all feels rather in the moment too, a fortunate concatenation of multiple streams of ideas and moods colliding and miraculously melding together into a seamless barrage. This caught me by surprise – it’s an album that, while it grabs you by the scruff and shakes you about, is also enterprising in that it doesn’t deny itself the chance to veer away from strict noise parameters. Give it a spin – it feel it’ll be worth a little exploration.

This will be released on September 1^st in vinyl, in two editions – Opaque Red (100 copies only) and standard Black Vinyl (350 copies only). Order from here:

https://nopartofit.bandcamp.com/album/civil-war

Psymon Marshall 2019.

Crows Labyrinth - All Will Perish

Album: All Will Perish

Artist: Crows Labyrinth

Label: Self-released

Catalogue no: N/A

Tracklist:

     1.      All Will Perish

     2.      Nuclear Shore

     3.      Frozen Waves

     4.      Category Five

     5.      Terminus

This offering from Dutch project Crows Labyrinth (Theo Tol) stands in complete contrast to one of my most recent reviews (the death ambient of Trepanerungsritualen) – dark ambient atmospherics abound, to be sure, but its natural home belongs aboveground as opposed to being in the depths. Furthermore, all these compositions are improvised and recorded in a single take (except tracks 2 & 3 – further processing was added post-recording), using nothing more than four- and five-string bass guitars processed through effects. Consequently this is an eclectic collection of ideas and concepts, a wide-ranging exploration of virtual landscapes, both natural and otherwise, and alien topologies.

It should come as no surprise then that the set of pieces presented come across as organic outgrowths, shaped and moulded in real time. The titular track glides in on supersonic streams, gracefully soaring high above the clouds in unfiltered light, barrel-rolling majestically and unhurriedly, catching the thermals and forever climbing. Pulsing and crackling chords, ebbing, flowing and punctuated by vocalisations, scintillate and spark warningly on ‘Nuclear Shores’, a palpable contaminant ready to twist and mutate the delicate DNA of living organisms.

‘Frozen Waves’ is a drone-locked ship, trapped and immobilised in a monolithic Lovecraftian nightmare, held fast by gargantuan slabs of ice that almost appear to be infused with a sentient malice. ‘Category Five’ is the eye of the storm, the eerie centre where everything is preternaturally quiet and calm, a muted harbinger of the maelstrom raging outside its bounds. ‘Terminus’ growls its way into life, a low rattling threat, a beast guarding its lair, daring us to take one more step. The threat escalates into sparking fury, a cacophonic series of spitting detonations endlessly reverberating, piling and collapsing on top of each other, spittle flying, eyes flashing, hackles rising. This is perhaps the very storm that ‘Category Five’ warned us about.

One aspect of this album I particularly like (and appreciate) is the deft maintenance of mood apparent on each composition – musician Tol has resisted the temptation to mess with the basic temper of any particular track, and instead built upon and enhanced the atmospherics. The danger in that, of course, is that that maintenance could become repetitive and samey, but there’s sufficient variation to hold the attention. Furthermore, the degrees of atmospherics expressed within all five tracks keeps the whole affair moving along nicely, delineating those fine differences in much the same way that different times of the day do in real life. It’s almost needless of me to add that this is an accomplished set, by an accomplished musician who undoubtedly is very aware of the ‘craft’ side of music and improvisational composition. Grab yourself a copy (available on the link below) - you may be glad you did.

https://crowslabyrinth.bandcamp.com/

Psymon Marshall 2019

Trepanerungsritualen - Konung Dómaldr Vid Upsala Hängd

Album: Konung Dómaldr Vid Upsala Hängd (Expanded & Remastered)

Artist: Trepanerungsritualen

Label: Neuropa Records

Catalogue no: NRP67

Tracklist: 

1. Ur Oðinns Sidosår

2. För Svears Väl

3. Blodregn

4. Den Fallne Dómaldrs Lik

5. Elivágar

Descend with me to the unutterably subterranean depths of the Hadean underworld that is the music (and mind) of Trepanerungsritualen, in my opinion one of the most truly original projects to have emerged from the industrial scene in the last decade or so. While there are many outfits to which such descriptors as doomy, dark, diabolical, or unhallowed would apply, in this instance Thomas Ekelund’s darkly oppositional project to his Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words encapsulates the very essences and definitions of these epithets. 

Konung Dómaldr Vid Upsala Hängd (Expanded & Remastered) is just that – an expanded and remastered (by Frederic Arbour of Cyclic Law fame) version of a recording originally released in 2013 on US label Merzbild as a limited edition cassette EP and subsequently in extended 12” form on In Solace Publishing two years later. This new edition features, two new tracks, ‘Ur Oðinns Sidosår’ and ‘Elivágar’ (previously only available on obscure compilations), which brings it up to something like album length. 

Immediately we find ourselves drifting down the Stygian waters through dank tunnels in the opening track, floating to a hellish destination populated by howling nightmares and bellowing horrors. A single accursed bell announces our arrival into this baleful region, signalling eternal torment and endless spiritual darkness, if not actual darkness. This is Sheol, filled not with the agonised screams of the damned, but instead with the oppressive weight of bitterness, dissatisfaction, grief, and remorse. Eternal torment here means a dead immortality of regret, of the heavy blanket of knowledge of a wasted life, and the twisting snakes of guilt.

The original EP’s opening track, ‘För Svears Väl’, tips us into a subterrestrial chasm inhabited by diabolical creations while a guttural voice utters curses and growls against a background of a reverberating drum. ‘Blodregn’ creaks into view, a misshapen creature wheezing arthritically and stalking a desolate corpse-littered plain buffeted by black winds with the shades of soul-devouring birds free-wheeling above. It segues straight into the following track (‘Den Fallne Dómaldrs Lik’) but now the wolves are circling, attracted by the heady aroma of spilt blood. Distantly, buried deep in the background, can just be heard the sounds of industry, belching smoke and bile, poisoning the air, ground, and anything living. Deep snarls waft over our heads, borne by those sulphurous currents, spitting gangrenous death and necrotising disease. Light, as dim and yellowed as it is, flies away to hide itself from the sights – it has no place here, no use or purpose. It is ashamed of, and laments for, its failure.

‘Elivágar’ gusts into existence, with blasts of wind even colder than you thought possible – this is the Hell of legend and myth, the place of suffering, of everlasting self-torment, and eternal self–reproach. There are no flames, no hellfire, and no brimstone, however – the torture and punishment is self-administered, and we’re here not because of the sins we’ve committed but for our sins of omission. We created this place – and for that reason we are forever imprisoned by its walls. It is a place of suffering, a self-defined one, and we haven’t been delegated here by some spiritual deity, but by our own selves. Its desolation is total, its bleakness unrelenting, its ruins blackened by our stink.

An immensely articulate and eloquent travelogue describing the lowermost regions of the hells we fashion for ourselves. Not only that, for me it’s also an indictment of the human condition: as a collective we appear to naturally gravitate towards the dark and unwholesome, but perhaps that’s because it contains more than a measure of the self-knowledge that we require to rise above it. Simplified, we must know the depths in order to appreciate the heights. Light cannot exist without darkness. And, if you’re looking for a champion who’s willing to delineate and articulate the profundities of the ineffably subterranean, then Trepanerungsritualen is that prophet.  

Psymon Marshall 2019.