This highly intriguing Australian duo returns once more with another intense full-length of heavily textured and layered material that blends numerous forms of extreme music into a barrage of bleak and caustic experimentation. At times I hear clear similarities to mid-period Neurosis and Godflesh, but Halo's sound is more organic, and in no way do I feel that they are unoriginal. Most of the compositions are driven by consistent drumming and slow paced tempos while vocals, bass, and electronic manipulations sway back and forth between the improvisational and the concrete. Among the standouts? "Crawl" uses crisp, natural drums with some of the most crushing low-end distortion and feedback I've ever heard - completely caving in on itself and personifying the sound of decay alongside sparse yells. At barely over a minute the track is one of Halo's shortest, but it works strikingly well. Meanwhile, "Filling the Empty Spaces With Cash" blends loose, grating bass strings with spacious reverberated drumming while the vocals furiously and repeatedly scream "You know, you've got to make money to spend money!" deep in the heart of the music. I love the recording this time out. There's an absolutely massive rumble to the low-end tones, but the vocals are perfectly clear, the drums warm, and there's a lot of grimy detail to all of the distorted textures exhibited. It's a little muddy to some degree, but it's not at all bothersome, and in all likelihood is intentional. As with the band's last release on Relapse, the artwork is fairly abstract and based on minimal color and texture, but it looks very fucking nice. The images are all consistent and tend to provide a lot of "blank" space with faint textures and patches of bluish/gray color, and there are some brief lines of lyrics inside that are rather striking: "On your knees open your mouth can you taste that cold hard steel at the back of your throat blood on your teeth that's the taste of money now suck now suckle and breathe you know you only get what you deserve you know you only get what you can take will you eat your own hands when there is nothing left..." I still wish that all of the lyrics were included since the band certainly has a defined message at work, but in some ways the combination of the song titles and the atmosphere of the music conveys as much as reading the lyrics would. Excellent work. I would almost go so far as to call this record the "Streetcleaner" of the new millennium. And honestly, I could definitely see the group topping this effort in the future. I'm hooked.
[Relapse]
Running time - 43:52, Tracks: 8
[Notable tracks: Buried in Light, Crawl, Filling the Empty Spaces With Cash]
Relapse Records - http://www.relapse.com
