Jesus of Nazareth "Braid of Muscle" CD
[Regurgitated Semen]
This project features ex-members of Enemy Soil and Blower, and is apparently an alter ego of Shit on Command. Included herein are 21 tracks in barely over 25 minutes, consisting of a mix of blasting drum machine grindcore and various forms of experimental noise, from harsh distorted bursts and caustic high-end, to sweeping dark ambient textures, samples, and quick ethereal undercurrents. Sadly none of the songs have titles, which is somewhat disappointing and makes it much harder to break things down and point out notable tracks, but what can you do? Most of the songs are less than a minute long, with a handful clocking in around two minutes or so, and one subdued dark ambient composition towards the end that actually hits nearly four minutes. But it's a pretty chaotic affair overall, shifting quickly both within individual compositions and from song to song, so expect lots of layering, maniacal screaming/shouting/yelling vocals, swirling fits of electronic noise, and then some. The first track is the most typical in its use of tremolo picking, intense speeds, and fairly straightforward structure, whereas the next few cuts are way more frantic and noisy, but still employ blasting drum programming and snarling vocal work. The eighth track has some wacky technical metal riffing pop up out of nowhere, but you're not gonna find much of that anywhere else herein. In the middle of the disc is an almost power electronics sounding piece with menacing crunches of vibrantly rugged distortion, samples, and some distant shouted vocals deep in the mix; whereas the following track takes a similar approach to rhythmic surges but layers in some acoustic guitars and samples very nicely. This one would make for a superb dark ambient/death industrial piece were it longer and more developed, though it ain't bad in its current form either! Later in the disc there's another great experimental selection that uses melodic synth sounding stuff against faintly distorted rumbles. Not too shabby. The last song is a complete assault of total harsh noise as well, so in some ways this CD is something that noise fans might want to check out even more so than metal listeners. Of course the recording is pretty damn raw, and I'm not sure where I stand on that one. On the one hand it's kind of cool because it keeps everything melded together and makes the drum machines either sound more like distant live percussion or intentionally over the top electronic bursts (ala digital hardcore or whatever), and the ambient stuff sounds pretty nice, but for the more structured grindcore it can be overly acerbic and cause details and force to get lost. Not a big deal, but... I don't know. The layout consists almost entirely of religious imagery, using very little text at all, so it looks pretty cool. I'm not wild on the band logo or the similar typefaces used when text is present, but... that's not a real issue either. I definitely wish there were song titles though, as the band name and album title are only so much to go on as far as the content here, especially considering you'll never make out a word of the vocals, and many of the samples are pretty clouded as well. I actually like the noise elements way more than the grind stuff on this thing, too. The vocals seem more powerful against the noise as well, perhaps because those elements allow more of the vocal texture to show through? I don't know. This isn't entirely my thing, but it's well done for what it is, and there's a lot of potential here. As I just stated, I feel like there's more promise on the noise front than the cyber grind side of things (or whatever you'd care to call it), but there's still some ferocity to be had with this disc, so... not bad. (6/10)
Running time - 25:14, Tracks: 21
[Notable tracks: they're all untitled]
Jesus of Nazareth - fileunderkid@hotmail.com

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