I believe this act is from the UK, I assume named after the OLD track of the same title, and the Stephen O'Malley layout is certainly indicative of what's in store here. The disc comes in a nice digipack sleeve that folds out from all sides into the shape of a cross with tons of busy layering of tight line art, deep reddish purple coloring, abstract imagery, a repeated woodcut image, and one panel with significant texts (I'm not sure what it represents) crammed in so tight you can barely read through everything. It definitely has the O'Malley aesthetic, as does the band's pulsing, droning, Sunn-esque heaviness. Each of these five compositions (averaging about 10 minutes or more apiece) was recorded live in the studio, which isn't a circumstance to cringe at when it comes to this stuff. I actually find this disc to be more interesting and effective than much of what Sunn has done more recently because it's hypnotic and loose but still has enough of a structure to latch onto and follow, not to mention there are some superb melodic moments that have a bit of a Godflesh undercurrent to them. For the most part expect bashing percussion alongside thick and massively sludgy detuned guitar/bass instrumentation (you can't really differentiate much between the two it's so dense). To change things up the drumming does let up at times in that the hits get softer and even sparser (needless to say the tempos here are damn slow), and the guitar/bass chords also slow down and break apart at times, leaving lots of breathing room. "Death Dirge Has Come" is a fitting title for track in which the distortion is so thick that the chords break down into fits of feedback as they sustain forth, not to mention introducing some borderline ridiculous "vocals" that could very well be hyper distorted samples of barking dogs or squealing monkeys (my money's on the latter, these sounds ain't human). Admittedly I find these textures to be the weak link in this piece but thankfully they don't make a return on the rest of the disc. There are a few more ambient moments where the sounds emitted become less obviously derived from stringed instruments, but these passages aren't too commonplace. "Feel My Need (Vengeance)" is one of the most melodic (still subtly) and ambient tracks, and actually my favorite on the disc, as is closer "Reoccurring Nightmare", which uses a lot of riffing in higher octaves than most of the other rhythms, bringing the thick melodies farther to the forefront. Despite being recorded live everything sounds fine. My only small gripe would be that the disc could stand to have been mastered a bit better to secure a louder output volume, but the dry percussion sound and open, resonant mix work well. It's on the overly thick side, and certainly has a certain gritty luster, but of course that makes perfect sense when it comes to this style. I'd wager that most any fan of Earth, Sunn, and that whole droning sludge quotient would be into this. In my opinion this record is stronger than most of Sunn's later work, so I would hope that these guys will get the proper amount of attention from that audience despite possessing significantly less "name power" (which shouldn't matter in the least).
[Traqueto]
Running time - 60:08, Tracks: 5
[Notable tracks: Feel My Need (Vengeance), Reoccurring Nightmare]
Traqueto Records - [email protected]
