Murderous Vision/Kuru "Blood-Brain Barrier" CD
[Somnambulant]
Murderous Vision begins with six tracks of their increasingly bleak death industrial soundscapes. "Stumble Upon the Scene" opens with murky synths, manipulated vocal samples, and unusual percussive sounds; "A Body Left at the Corrigated Dock" runs 11+ minutes of rumbling distortion and feedback with harsh distorted vocals and pounding low-end in the distance; "Face of the Kill" is quieter and uses lots of thin, fragile distortion with a subtle loop repeating at times; "Crushed, Then Removed" follows similarly but kicks up the rhythmic pulse and aggression factor tenfold, also utilizing some blistering distorted vocal shouts that lend a power electronics feel to things; "4th Day Stench" continues in a very similar but even harsher manner; and "Baby, It Ain't No Sin" closes with an unusual attack of harsh noise with hyper obfuscated vocals and lots of vibrating movement. Some of the pieces are slightly redundant for their length (those tracks that exceed five or 10 minutes), but I enjoy the overall diversity of the work. The feel is definitely rooted in death industrial, but everything from flowing dark ambient to blatant hash noise is suitably represented herein. I think a little bit more of a balance would help (i.e. more songs like "Stumble Upon the Scene"), but this is very good work. Kuru offers up four tracks in about 20 minutes, 10 minutes or so less than what Murderous Vision threw out. "Landing of the Gods" is fairly harsh with lots of somewhat typical rising and falling tones and some chaotic bursts with delay; "Dreamwalker" uses hums and drones with some almost melodic ringing tones to create a softer, more minimal and expressive track that I quite enjoy; "Collective Meat" is a good mix of dark ambient and harsh textures, creating a brooding atmosphere that is curious in that the sounds suggest that you may be hearing things that aren't really there; "Contaminating Opposites" is far quieter than the other compositions, with some distant abrasive distortion and sweeping low-end synth undercurrents - very cool; and the closer, "Resolve Into Totem", is a brief piece that infuses some melodic synths (under light distortion) into the mix. I think that "Resolve Into Totem" and especially "Landing of the Gods" are misrepresentative of what this project is truly capable of, as the core of the material is far stronger than either of those tracks suggest, but this is a good match against Murderous Vision. The CD-R comes in a DVD case with excellent packaging. Nothing's inside, but the outer cover is printed in two shades of gold and bronze, all of which are metallic (Or perhaps printed on some sort of metallic paper?), creating some interesting visual effects. A few unusual woodcut-esque illustrations are present, and text is minimal (tracklist, contact information, etc.), but the overall appearance is very curious and catches the eye. This is a good split. I think it could be stronger as each project does include a couple of less than essential contributions, but it works out in the end. (7/10)
Running time - 51:59, Tracks: 11
[Notable tracks: Stumble Upon the Scene, Crushed, Then Removed, Dreamwalker, Contaminating Opposites]
Somnambulant Corpse Recordings - http://www.somnambulantcorpse.com

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