Niku Daruma – Tourniquetting

Niku Daruma – Tourniquetting – 7” / Download – Damien Records - 2022

https://nikudaruma.bandcamp.com/album/tourniquetting

https://damienrecords666.bandcamp.com/album/tourniquetting

       1.       Exsanguinating.

       2.       Tourniquetting.

       3.       Triaging.

A massive blast of distortion that buries screaming and synthesiser sounds greets me. After a break, I am reacquainted with Niku Daruma and Exsanguinating shows a massive development and massive leap forward in their sound. Tourniquetting pushes this out even further, the vocal is amazing and barks through the noise. The sound is huge, bleak, mournful whilst still maintaining the rage of the earlier work. The underlying synthesisers add the mournful aspect as if playing out funeral sadness under the distortion and vocal howl. The variation brings texture, by collapsing the sound and allowing the vocal prominence at one point is impressive. Triaging goes into a lower volume, whispered vocals and jolts of sound build up collide to demonstrate a complex depth. Lone drones become howling frequencies as they shift from one to the other and back again. The screams of old return here, the stripped-down sound now works to emphasise them and bolster their effectiveness.

As modern, younger, American Power Electronics goes, Niku Daruma fits in with the current generation that are trying to remodel it, whilst successfully retaining a dangerous, wilfully violent sound that resonates on recordings and live performances. I want to look around the scene and dare myself to find anything as good as this.

Army of One 2022.