Posts Tagged ‘Heavy’

Modern Technology – Conditions of Worth

Posted: 4 October 2023 in Albums
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
1

Human Worth – 13th October 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

From the moment Modern Technology blasted in with their eponymous debut EP, simultaneously launching the Human Worth label, it was clear that they were special. The duo made the most fucking incredible, low-slung, dense mean-ass noise going. The lyrics were social, political, and sharp, paired down to stark one-line declarations dissecting with absolute precision the fucked-up situation in which we find ourselves. And with a percentage of proceeds of every Human Worth release going to charity, they’ve put their money where their mouth is. It’s not done in some crass, virtue-signalling way: this is their model, and they just get on and do it. And through Human Worth they’ve released some – no, many – absolutely incredible records, rapidly establishing HW as purveyors of quality product with a keen ear for quality noise. In an increasingly fragmented and challenging musical market, the trick for any label is to find a niche and excel within it. And that’s precisely what these guys have done.

And all the while, as a band, Modern Technology just get better and better. Any concerns that they had said all they had to say following the EP and debut album Service Provider (as if there ever were any!) are allayed with the arrival of Conditions of Worth.

Lead single ‘Dead Air’ opens it up with dense, grinding anguish. Chris Clarke’s bass and vocals seem to have got heavier. Then again, so does Owen Gildersleeve’s drumming. But it’s more than just brutal abrasion. In the mid-track breakdown, things go clean and the tension in that picked bass note is enough to spasm the muscles and clench the brain. It’s brutal start to a brutal album.

‘Lurid Machines’ begins in a squall of feedback and wracked, anguished vocals, and it’s harrowing, the sound of pain. The lyrics are comparatively abstract, and all the more powerful for it. Written out in all block caps, they’re in your face but wide open to interpretation and elicit the conjuring of mental images:

WHY ARE THEY SO ALONE?

THE LIES THEY ALL SHARE

LET GO

INSIDE NOTHING GLOWS

BENEATH A SHADOWED PHONE

The drums and bass crawl in and grind out a low, slow dirge, Clarke’s vocals are down in the mix and you feel yourself being dragged into a chasm of darkness.

These are harrowing times, and if the pandemic seemed like a living nightmare, it seems it was only the preface. The ‘new normal’ is not the utopia some commentators suggested it may be. For a moment, it looked as though we would achieve the golden goal of the work/life balance, that we may abandon the commute and save hours a week for ourselves and slash our carbon emissions in the process. But no. Fuck that. Get back to the office, tough shit that fuel prices are rocketing and bollocks to the anxiety you developed in lockdown and bollocks to the environment because power trumps everything. Government power, corporate power, media power… we are all fucked and have no hope of breaking this. And this is the backdrop to Conditions of Worth.

They pick up the pace and start ‘Salvation’ with an uncharacteristically uptempo stoner rock vibe, but around the midpoint they flip things, slowing the pace and opening up towering cathedrals of sound as a backdrop to painting a stark depiction of life on earth.

WIDESPREAD

FAMINE

WIDESPREAD

CONFLICT

WIDESPREAD

PANIC

WIDESPREAD

SHADOW

The song ends with just a spare, fragile but earthy bass that calls to mind Neurosis and Kowloon walled City. It’s this loamy, organic texture which defines the altogether more minimal ‘The Space Between’, the first of the album’s two longer pieces, with the second being the ten-minute title track. It’s here that their evolution is perhaps most evident, as they stretch the parameters of their compositions to forge such megalithic works and really push the limits of their two-piece arrangement. In contrast, there’s the super-concise ‘Fully Detached’, , and the last track, ‘ Believieer’, which are absolute hardcore ragers, clocking in with short running times, the former just making a minute and fourteen seconds. And the variety on display here only adds to the album’s impact. While each track hits hard, the overall impact is obliterating.

They crank up the volume and the shades of distortion in the explosive choruses of ‘Lane Control’ – because you can never have too many effects when it comes to bass played like guitar and blasting screaming noise to articulate feelings, and as for the title track… it’s an absolute beast, with heavy hints of latter-day Killing Joke in the mix as they flay mercilessly at a pulverising riff. The noise builds and the vocals sink beneath it all and you’re left feeling dazed.

But more than that, there’s something about the production on Conditions of Worth that’s deeply affecting. There’s a skull-crushing sonic density, but also simultaneously, remarkable separation and sonic clarity. These elements only make it his harder.

Conditions of Worth is more than just heavy. It leaves you feeling hollowed out, drained, weak. This is life, and this album is the perfect articulation.

AA

HW031_ModernTechnology_ConditionsOfWorth_CoverArtwork

Yes Grasshopper – Ghost Dog Pagoda

Posted: 3 October 2023 in Singles and EPs
Tags: , , , , , ,
0

Inverted Grim-Mill Recordings – 6th October 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Yes Grasshopper’s ‘Ghost Dog Pagoda’ is the lead single from the forthcoming album of the same name.

Grasshopper? Yes, grasshopper. Not cricket. While on a recent day trip to Berwick Upon Tweed, my daughter was asking about the sounds of the crickets or grasshoppers, and I had to confess I was unaware of the difference, and had to look up the main visual difference is the length of their antennae, and the main biological difference is how they make that distinctive sound.

While I’m still unsure if we were hearing crickets or grasshoppers, it’s clear that despite being in the north-east, we weren’t hearing Yes Grasshopper, as their most informative biography clarifies: ‘Grasshoppers are among what is possibly the most ancient living group of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic period around 250 million years ago. Those species that make easily heard noises usually do so by rubbing a row of pegs on the hind legs against the forewings, this is known as stridulation. Yes grasshopper formed in 2020 and make noises with a guitar and some drums. Emerging from England’s unforgiving northern coast, this dynamic duo present a wholly unique take on noise rock, with crushing riffs, white water rhythmic twists and barking intertwined vocals making way for heinously catchy hooks.’

As titles go, ‘Ghost Dog Pagoda’ it’s simultaneously visual and abstract. As songs go, it’s absolutely mighty.

The single starts out with a tight picked guitarline, which nags away, before the bass and drums crash in, hard and with the kind of density that feels like a body blow. There’s a moment of pullback to build the tension further before POW!! Fuck!

This isn’t the sound of innocuous insects: it’s the sound of ground-razing devastation. The distorted vocals are way low in the mix, only adding to the impression of monster volume – those smallish gigs where the backline and guitars are so fucking loud the in-house PA simply cannot compete and so the vocals are lost but somehow cut through and the thrill is just beyond words because the sheer sonic impact is beyond words… If you’ve ever experienced this, you will know, and this is the blistering force of ‘Ghost Dog Pagoda’. If you haven’t experienced it, then you need to get out and witness more small-venue live music.

Back to the single, it’s a mess of noise, a full-tilt, all-out sonic assault. The hooks really come in the respite, where the nagging guitar returns, because the rest… it’s a brain-shredding attack. The vocals aren’t only low in the mix, but they’re a frenzied howl blanketed in distortion, and the song’s structure is a long way from a neat verse/chorus alternation. Fuck, it’s impossible to follow, and I have no idea what’s going on from one second to the next. But herein lies its sheer brilliance: ‘Ghost Dog Pagoda’ isn’t pretty, and makes no concession to commercialism or accessibility – not a single one. It hits you, hard, with a wall of abrasive noise, and it’s a beast alright.

AA

YG

Black Shape – BINS

Posted: 30 September 2023 in Albums
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Panurus Productions – 6th October 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Heavy music doesn’t have to be po-faced or excessively serious, and there have been a few comedy metal and noise bands through the years. Lawnmower Deth are one which swiftly spring to mind, but the likes of Municipal Waste, and lesser-known acts like Grindcore Cakemakers also make hard noise while being a far cry from the existential rage more commonly associated with their genres. And that’s good. The world needs variety, and there’s more than one way to alleviate the grimness of life on this sorry planet.

This album from Black Shape is perhaps the absolute antithesis of Godflesh’s seminal Streetcleaner. With the lumbering weight of a runaway bin lorry, Black Shape rumble their way through eleven tracks of bin themed absurdity, utilising their knack for writing material that is as colossally heavy as it is varied and comedic. Most of the tracks are around the two-minute mark, with just a couple of four-minute outliers. On the surface it’s a whole mess of noisy shit, but closer listening soon reveals a wildly varied album which incorporates jazz, spoken word, nu-metal, rap and thrash.

‘The Beast from the North East’ is a dirty, shouty punk effort – more Anti-Nowhere League than The Pistols. Dense, muscular, with filthy sludge guitars, pant-soiling bass, and a wild solo which occupies half the song’s duration. The production is rough and raw, and this works in its favour: the guitar on ‘I Wanna be a Binman’ positively tears from the speakers, and it’s like being at a gig and standing so close to the PA that your nostrils vibrate. If you’ve never done it, you need to at least once, although earplugs are recommended. You still feel the force without fucking your hearing for the rest of your life. It’s a throbbing stomper reminiscent of Ministry circa Psalm 69. Only instead of burning for the needle, it’s a hard craving for lugging refuse. They pillage every style going here: ‘Dogshit Bin Juice’ takes a turn for the choral in the verses between ball-busting glam stomp riff breaks. It’s hilarious, but also makes you think. You sometimes hear that binmen are pretty well-paid. But would you do this, for any money?

If ‘Put Me in the Bin’ is the most overtly old-school punk cut, the recording is again more industrial, which couldn’t be more at odds with the offbeat, off-the-cuff lyrics, while ‘Once a Binman, Always a Binman’ throws a curveball with a gentle intro and unlikely lift of ‘Love Lift us Up Where We Belong’ before going full-slugging nu-metal / grunge crossover, with the meaty heft of Tad bringing the blue collar grit to proceedings. There are some moments of astute observation and social critique which land quite unexpectedly, but it just goes to show that it’s a mistake to write of a so-called ‘comedy’ album – or indeed any comedy – as shallow, lacking in content, or emotional depth. ‘The Story of How I Died’ brings lilting harp and Pam Ayres style narrative.

Beyond bin-related themes, this is not an album that’s predictable in anyway, lyrically or stylistically, with piano ballads pressed against squalling hardcore assaults. And because of the punk / thrash / metal leanings, and the overall daftness of many of the lyrics and the overall concept, Black Shape’s musicianship is likely to be overlooked. But the range is a measure of immense versatility and competence. Black Shape are the Bill Bailey of dustbins, and BINS is a work of sheer brilliance.

AA

a2313098061_10

Watch: ‘Salvation’ by Modern Technology

Posted: 24 September 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
0

Human Worth are stoked to present the second single from ferocious noise rock duo Modern Technology’s new full-length Conditions of Worth.

Set against a stark environment, the video, directed by the band’s Chris Clarke, explores the song’s themes of environmental degradation and our exploitation of the earth, as a direct comparison to a contaminated social conscious – largely choosing self perseveration and greed over collective progress. The video’s footage of natural and man-made disasters represent a mankind so poisoned, that we are merely fanning the flames at this point. A sense of absolution is among us, and it’s exactly what we deserve – we are all Icarus, and we were all warned.

Chris Clarke says of the video “Amongst all the tracks on the album, I have a very deep connection to this one. Working on the visual articulation of this track was a chance to pull on another emotive lever, and capture the full sentiment of this song. And one that I hope resonates with others.”

Watch the video here:

‘Salvation’ is the second single from Modern Technology’s new record Conditions of Worth, which is now available to pre-order as a limited heavyweight 180g vinyl, with 10% of all proceeds donated to charity Choose Love.

AA

a0838877817_10

Great Falls – Objects Without Pain

Posted: 22 September 2023 in Albums
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
1

Neurot Recordings – 15th September 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Once upon a time, way back, I’m confident I read an interview with the artist Francis Bacon which contained the phrase ‘life is pain’. It certainly sounds like one of his brutally bleak and precisely pithy lines, encapsulating his eternally dark world view, but I can’t for the life of me find it anywhere, at least not attributed to Bacon. It’s a phrase which seems to have acquired an online ubiquity to the point that it’s simply something people say now. People say all kinds of nonsense, though. I had a work colleague who would often wheel out the line that ‘pain is weakness leaving the body.’ He was an imbecile, and that’s not how it works or I’d be Hercules by now.

In this context, the concept of objects without pain is almost inconceivable. No pain? Oh, to be inanimate… But as the accompanying notes soon render apparent, Great Falls’ fourth album is a work which plunders a whole world of pain: ‘Objects Without Pain takes us on a bleak, purgative journey through a separation – a snapshot of the turmoil and indecision that occurs after the initial realization of someone’s misery, and before the ultimate decision to end a decades-long partnership. From the foreboding intro riffs of ‘Dragged Home Alive’ to the end of the 13-minute closer ‘Thrown Against The Waves,’ its eight tracks explore the thoughts that come up when a person is staring down the barrel of blowing up their life: How did this happen? Is it too late for a new life? Will the kid be OK? What will make me happier: familiar torment or unknown freedom?’

This is dark, alright. And it’s weighty, but not always in the most obvious sense. Indeed, the nine-minute opener, ‘Dragged Home Alive’ begins with nothing but a clean guitar, strummed scratchily. But then the vocals, a pure howl of anguish, tell us this is not some mellow folksy effort, and from there it builds, and when the bass and drums kick in, it’s nothing short of explosive. The drums are fast, nuanced, dynamic, almost jazzy, while the bass is thick and squirmy, it’s the sound of a snake wrestling to escape the hold of a human, and everything comes together with such fiery force you feel dizzy, whiplashed, battered from every angle – then the second half is almost another song; still slow, still heavy, but with a very different sound and level of energy, and it fucking pummels. This is powerful stuff.

They keep the riffs coming thereafter, too, as they deliver obliterative volume and endless anguish and emotional torment of a failed relationship and its fallout. It’s not pretty or poetic, but the internal monologue and the conflict laid out straight in real-time, churning through questions of blame and sifting through belongings, bald vignettes and depictions of packing, moving.

I spend my day

Searching homes

And I can be

Alone for real

I spend my day

Searching towns

And I can be

Searching alone

And I can be

Searching alone

I can’t do this

It hits hard because it’s so, so raw, so real, so much a real voice, unfiltered and rendered overtly lyrical. And because of this, rather than in spite of, the lyrics are true poetry. The pain is real, and you feel it.

‘Born as an Argument’ is considered, slow, dolorous, but also raw and ragey, and with its double-pedal drumming, it’s heavy-hitting. Even winding down to soft, almost folky vocals to fade, the heavy mood lingers, and then ‘Old Words Worn Thin’ crashes in with lumbering bass and vocals screaming anguish. The bass that crunches is at bowel-level on ‘Ceilings Inch Closer’ is the definition of energy, channelling all of the negativity and conflicting emotions into something so sonically solid the impact is physical.

As a label, Neurot has a knack for finding bands which are ‘like’ Neurosis but different, with Kowloon Walled City recent standouts for their brand of stark, bleak, nihilistic heft, and, on the same pile, Great Falls. Only, while sharing that heavy nihilism and the roaring rage of Unsane, they stand apart from so much of the label roister by virtue of their sheer force and absence of breathing spaces. Breathing is for wimps. Suck it up and plough on. Bathe in the brutality of Great Falls. Absorb the pain, and grow stronger for it.

AA

779849

Pound Land – Violence

Posted: 17 September 2023 in Albums
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
1

Cruel Nature Records – 29th September 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Following the stop-gap video release of ‘Liar’ from their singles compilation, Manchester’s most miserable are back with another long-player.

For their sixth album, they promise ‘eight filthy tracks of vitriolic desperation’ on a set that ‘often veers towards a nineties alt-metal/industrial sound, along with the usual smatterings of customary Pound Land abstraction…In addition, this new album continues to aggressively push lyrical themes relating to the same old shit that seems to be getting worse: corporate hegemony, business culture, mainstream media influence, automation, class polarisation and economic austerity.’

I sit in the dim, narrow ‘spare bedroom’ that is the office where I work my day-job by day and write reviews by night, slumped, exhausted by life. I moved into this house ten years ago, and while I was fortunate to be able to buy it, it was previously a magnolia-coated rental with fire doors and stain-forgiving turd brown carpets throughout. The fire doors may be gone, but my poky office which, measuring 7 feet by 12 feet, would make for a fucking tight bedroom, still had the turd-brown carpet, because when presented with the choice of food and beer or a new carpet, carpet seems like an extravagance I can survive without. I realise and appreciate that I’m fortunate: I can at least afford both food and beer.

If Pound Land’s releases seem to plough the same furrow only deeper and laced with a greater despondency, that’s largely the point. As they say, ‘the same old shit that seems to be getting worse’, and that’s the shit that’s grist to their mill. No doubt their mill will be sold off or shut down, or knocked down to make way for a hotel or flats before long, but for the time being at least, they’re still plugging away. And thank fuck they are.

Yes, there is a rising swell of music that’s telling it like it is: if Sleaford Mods led the way, it’s been a slow trickle rather than an opening of the floodgates in their wake, most likely because people are too busy working overtime in their day jobs to pay the electricity bill to make music, but lately we’ve seen these guys, plus Benefits, Kill! The Icon, and Bedsit calling out the shitness of everything. And make no mistake: everything really is fucking shit, unless you’re a fucking billionaire.

‘Programmed’ barrels in with a squalling mess of grimy bass and screeching electronics reminiscent of Cruise-era Whitehouse, and it’s a sonic amalgamation that’s painful and penetrating, hitting the guts and piercing the ear drums simultaneously. The thunderous ruff buries the drums and when the snarling vocals enter the mix, spitting vitriol with blinding rage, everything combines to tear forth with a wall of nihilism that’s in the same field as Uniform. Then – what the fuck? Wild roaming saxophone sprays all over before another onslaught of rabid rage. It’s seven and a half minutes of devastating carnage that leaves you feeling hollowed out and wondering where they could possibly go from here?

More of the same, of course: grimacing and with gritted teeth, they grind, thud, trudge and bulldoze their way mercilessly through another six tracks – and half an hour – of relentlessly grey sludge, by turns angry and despondent.

Like Sleaford Mods, Pound Land’s compositions are built around monotony and repetition, but whereas the former place predominant emphasis on the lyrics, the snappy wordplay and caustic commentary, Pound Land batter and bludgeon repetitive lyrics in the way that Swans did in their early years, and their music is very much a mirror of the crushing effects of drudgery. It does articulate the gut-puling anguish of the everyday, and in the most direct way possible.

The raw, raging punk of ‘New Labour’ offers a shift in tempo, but it still sounds like it was recorded on a mobile phone left in a corner of the rehearsal room.

The majority of the album, though, is a succession of crawling dirges dominates by overloading bass. The lyrics are simple, direct – when they’re audible. ‘Fuck the facts and roll the news’ Adam Stone yells repeatedly over a bowel-busting bass growl on ‘Media Amnesia’. ‘Life is so much easier / with media amnesia,’ he spits before launching into a brutal rant – one of many.

There is absolutely no let up on Violence. It’s hard and heavy, uncompromising and unpleasant. Even sparser tracks like ‘Low Health’, where it’s more spoken word with churning noise, the atmosphere is never less than crushingly oppressive, harrowingly bleak.

The last track, ‘Violence Part 2’ is five minutes of brutal racket that’s the nastiest of lo-fi- sludge and which is the perfect encapsulation of the album as a whole. It’s grim, it’s bleak, and it’s supposed to be.

Rarely has a band so perfectly captured the zeitgeist through a horrible mess of noise that makes you physically hurt and ache and feel like you’re being subjected to an array of tortures. This is the world. This is Britain, in 2023. If you’re not a millionaire, you might as well be dead. It’s what they want. Poor, disabled? Fuck off and die. This is the grim reality of the world Pound Land present, and while that isn’t actually one of their lyrics, the bleak message is clear: we’re fucked.

AA

a1836109826_10

Watch: ‘Further In Evil’ by Marthe

Posted: 13 September 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Further In Evil is the debut full length from one-woman metal band, Marthe, which is due via Southern Lord on October 20th. An atmospheric and aggressive blend of punk, Further In Evil is a shift in gears from her musical background in the anarcho-punk scene and inspired by riot grrrl, crust and d-beat. The lyrics are full of rage and the music is full of strength; it has the power of Bathory and the sadness of Tiamat, tinged with the stench of Amebix.

Marthe is, at heart, a solo bedroom project— born out of introversion and a desire to explore new horizons and landscapes alone.  “Around 2012, I started feeling the need to express myself in a heavier and more atmospheric way,” explains Marzia, the woman behind the Marthe project. “I coincidentally started hiking more and more… getting closer to lonely soundscapes: my life, feelings and moods started being more introspective and introverted.” She continues, “Marthe suddenly became my comfort zone, my therapy, my shadow of loneliness, my book of truths, my mirror, my alter ego. Locking the door and disappearing in darkness recording music alone became something so powerful… I probably never really met myself before that.”

Further In Evil was composed and demoed over the course of a year during drives or hikes and, fatefully, the first look at the album – its title track – showcases the grandeur of Marthe’s surroundings.  Self-filmed and edited between Italy and Iceland, the "Further In Evil" video boasts the beauty of nature contrasted by Marthe’s devastating sounds.

Southern Lord have today unveiled a video for the snarling blackened title track, and it’s a monster. Watch it here:

AA

aLm2iwvu

Photo credit: Silvia Polmonari

Kadaitcha – Tramontane

Posted: 9 September 2023 in Albums
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
0

ant-zen – 16th September 2023

Christopher Nosnbor

Four years on from Tar, Ukrainian industrial duo Kadaitcha, consisting of Andrii Kozhukhar and Yurii Samson, have overcome many, many challenges to deliver album number five, in the form of Tramontane.

The tracks which appeared on their limited lathe-cut single last year do not appear here, and this is admirable: singles so often tend to be used as launchpads for albums, and it was particularly common in the 80s and 90s that albums would sell on the basis of a couple of singles, but would have next to no other decent tracks. In the days before streaming, this was something that was easy to get away with, since the only way of hearing the album was by buying it, which you would do based on the singles. But then, the risk could be reduced by taking punts using your half price or free options through Britanna Music, or similar. The advent of streaming hasn’t really improved things, though, because now, at least in mainstream circles, the album is essentially obsolete.

But outside the mainstream, the album is thriving, and artists are pushing the format now that the constraints and limitations of physical formats aren’t necessarily dictatorial in determining duration, and there are infinite options for exploration. The single wasn’t so much of a stop-gap release as a standalone document of a period in time. But the key point here is that Tramontane is very much an album, and a work to be approached as such. The notes which accompany the release are almost hallucinatory – not quite Burroughs cut-ups, but fragmented, non-linear, and they serve to articulate the essence of the music contained here. Stylistically, it’s tight and cogent, and there’s a flow to it, too, which begins with the appropriately-titled ‘Intro’, which is precisely that – a short instrumental intro piece which paves the way for the ten heavyweight cuts which follow. But within that coherence, what Tramontane offers is a work which really goes all-out to disrupt and unsettle.

‘Niello’ draws primarily on the sound and style of earlier industrial music, the electronic pioneers of the late 70s and early 80s, the likes of DAF and Cabaret Voltaire, but with its distorted, menacing vocals, there’s an element of the later evolutions of industrial which emerged in the mid 80s. It seems to be that there are very different understandings of industrial, and while Al Jourgensen may be a huge fan of William Burroughs and the music that formed the body of the first wave of Industrial music, namely Throbbing Gristle and also the wild tape loop works of Foetus and the heavy percussion of Test Dept, it’s industrial metal and harsh post-NIN electronica which have come to become synonymous with industrial latterly.

On Tramontane, Kadaitcha have brought the two forms, old and new, together, and the result is discordant, noisy, difficult. And these are its selling points. It feels like a guided tour through the most challenging aspects of Industrial music through its evolution and history.

‘Knife’ is a sparse, oppressive low-end throb pinned down by a dull, thudding, muffled-sounding beat, over which twitching electrical streams flash and flow while monotone vocals are unsettlingly detached. The percussion really dominates on the tempestuous ‘Liars’ and any and all references to Einstürzende Neubauten are entirely appropriate. It’s a thunderous, dense racket where the low end really stands to the fore, but it’s tame in comparison to the dark ‘Offering’: even when it drives out as a heavy and insistent bass riff, it feels unfinished, undercomposed. Yet therein lies its success: it feels organic, and nothing is overdone.

The mangled noise and droning distorted vocal on ‘Fossil’ is pure Throbbing Gristle, a barrelling barrage of blitzkrieg laser synth bleeps and a whole mess of midrange and lower end distortion and dirt, churning, discordant, the monotone vocals almost buried in the tempest of overloading unpleasantness, and ‘Seeds’ is similarly unpleasant and uncomfortable, everything going all out on overdrive.

It all comes together on ‘Insight’: beginning as a gentle, spacious, mellow post-rock guitar-led piece, it soon erupts into a mess of overload akin to Metal Machine Music, only with drums and sinister vocals. It’s got the lot, and as the album enters its final stages, it seems to consolidate the elements of the previous tracks to punch even harder, with the percussion harder, the grinding morass denser and darker.

Perhaps a reflection of the circumstances in which it was created, perhaps a reflection of the times in the world at large, Tramontane is heavy and at times harrowing. The lyrics may not be decipherable for the most part, but the mood requires no translation or interpretation, and Tramontane will crush your soul.

AA

a3600121745_10

T-800 – T-800

Posted: 5 September 2023 in Albums
Tags: , , , , , ,
0

Panurus Productions – 6th October 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Sometimes, you really crave something that’ll not just blow away the cobwebs, but blast a hole in your cranium big enough to pass not only the cobwebs but the entire house. That’s what I found myself craving tonight. Because… well, life. Things which should be simple and straightforward end up being stressful and taking half a day. And such days just spiral and the pressure builds and then someone tells you ‘you need to chill’ – to which ‘you need to fuck off’ seems a reasonable response. Sure, some breathing exercises and a spot of Yoga are all well and good, and I’m not actually averse to doing ‘nice’ things that may help to lower my blood pressure and help avert the risk of an aneurysm or a stroke before I’m fifty, but… but sometimes, before that, you need to release the rage, and some sonic obliteration fulfils the urge to purge. And sometimes, a short, sharp shock is the best therapy.

I was sold the second I saw the description of this release, offering up ‘An incendiary explosion from the moment you press play, salvos of chainsaw guitars and fully automatic percussion issue forth at the command of a monstrous and varied vocal delivery. Relentless and efficient, the force of T-800’s delivery is only augmented by their precision, and there is no let up in the twelve minutes this release takes to achieve its destructive aims.’

Twelve minutes? It’s an EP, right? Nope: ten tracks, the longest of which is a minute and thirty-five seconds long. I suppose it might still be an EP, since it would actually fit on a 45rpm 7” single, and I cast my eyes to my beloved 3CD box set, Grind Madness at the BBC, which collects the Peels sessions of the likes of Extreme Noise Terror, Carcass, and Napalm Death and contains about six hundred tracks, including ‘You Suffer Pt 2’, a 15-second recording of the legendary 1-second ‘You Suffer’ which is actually four seconds of noise and eleven seconds of reverb fading.

T-800’s eponymous release is nasty, gnarly, brutal, guttural gargling and crazed shrieking vocals are barely audible beneath barrelling bass, clattering, crashing drums and the most overloading, distorted guitars imaginable. This is proper old-school grindy thrash racket, and make no mistake, it’s fucking savage. The mix is dingy, dirty, and whwwn they do slow it down a bit so everything isn’t a blizzarding blur of overloading distortion played at three hundred miles an hour (look no further than the cruel pounding blast of ‘By Design’ for that), the results are bleak and tense, with the thirty-two second ‘I’ being a slow crushing loop that’s reminiscent of some of Swans’ early offcuts, as featured on the Body to Body, Job to Job, compilation.

‘Perfume Corpse’ is as pretty as it gets in its ruthless dissection of life and all things, from the raw raging of ‘Hacked Mainframe’ to the vitriolic gut-spilling of ‘Orbital Bombardment’, and in closing, ‘II’ feels like the liquefaction of a corpse seeping into the ground. And as it ends, the realisation strikes that twelve minutes is enough. T-800 is furious and filthy, and its execution is spot on. But it tears at your guts and kicks without mercy.

AA

a3875433826_10

Watch: ‘Dead Air’ by Modern Technology

Posted: 3 September 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
0

‘Dead Air’ is the lead single from ferocious noise rock duo Modern Technology’s new full-length Conditions of Worth.

‘Dead Air’ kicks into life with a dense smog-like atmosphere, engulfing the listener in a battering of hard-hitting drums, fuzzed out bass riffs and gruff, acidic yelling. The song’s chorus “IS THIS HOW THE WORLD ENDS!?” becomes a cautionary mantra as the duo reminisce about good times gone, trudging on through a world that has become increasingly scarier, more dangerous, inhospitable and absurd. Dead Air is a sonic beatdown forged from chaos, restlessness and hostility concerning our impending shared future. The goal for the Dead Air music video was simple – to capture the rawness and visceral live energy of Modern Technology’s celebrated live performances.

Shot in exquisite black and white, director Chris Purdie favours simplicity and authenticity, stripping everything back and placing the duo and their live gear into a proverbial blank space, captured in minimal unbroken takes. Even devoid of an audience feeding back their energy, the heavy pair showcase the sweat, fury and unyielding power that makes their exhilarating shows so compelling. With this song and much of the album being written and demoed during the pandemic, the band’s on screen solitude echoes the conditions in which the album was conceived. The visible anguish on the faces of band members Chris Clarke and Owen Gildersleeve mirror their shared concerns about social unrest, austerity, the climate crisis, and the feelings of fear, hopelessness and anger that came from such turbulent times – the very themes that make up Conditions Of Worth.

Director Chris Purdie, who has previously worked on seminal videos for the likes of Oxbow and AVSA, says of this project “I knew from the first time I heard Modern Technology that I wanted to work with them on a video like this. Visually I felt we shared similar aesthetics, so I pitched to them the idea of a RIFF.Underground-style performance video, minus the trappings of the live environment. When the band explained the meaning behind the song to me, it became clear that we were all on the same page so the visual design came together quickly. Having that extra freedom to explore meant we could really go to town with extreme camera angles, fog, and especially light placement.”

Watch the video here:

Older Entries
Newer Entries