The Rita "Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence" CD
[PACrec]
This is the first proper CD release from this Canadian project, said to be heavily influenced by Italian giallo horror films and harsh noise cassette culture. I'd say that makes sense, as the disc contains two 30-minute tracks (Maybe like a side A and side B?) of very loud, very raw harsh noise with a definite lo-fi aesthetic. And that's all fine and dandy, I like the packaging aesthetics and the way that everything ties together here in a consistent manner. But let's face it: This fucker is boring. "Vice Wears Black Hose" opens things up with a half-hour of unrelenting harsh distortion. It's thick, it's muddy, and it's damn sure persistent. It rarely shifts at all, and only on rare occasion do slight fits of additional texture sound like they're trying to break through to the surface. At times there are some manic shrieks that add a sense of ferocity, but these elements are too few and far between to carry such a long composition. The second track is "Naked Girl Found Dead in the Park", a collaboration with Mania (another project from Taint's Keith Brewer), but don't think that's going to provide much variety, as to my dismay it sounds almost exactly like the opener. Sometimes the distortion has a little more of a bite to its texture, but it's still an oppressive half-hour with almost no true variation (i.e. nothing really grabs you and shakes things up). The disc comes in a nice looking matte slipcase with a mutilated corpse on the back and a pretty brutal illustration on the cover depicting the reflection of the act of mutilation appearing on the victim's eye. So... it looks good, and for raw harsh noise that's true to the genre's fanatically diehard following this is decent for what it is, but in my opinion there's very little character or true atmosphere to the sounds, and as a whole things are rather bland and uneventful. If it was a 7" where both songs were shortened to six or seven minutes it would be great, but... as it stands I'm not enthused by it. I was definitely hoping for something a bit more disturbing or directly violent, rather than something that just pounds on you endlessly without much force. (4/10)
Running time - 60:00, Tracks: 2
[Notable tracks: they're both incredibly similar to one another]
PACrec - http://www.iheartnoise.com

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