Lured in by a Noisy documentary highlighting this musicians use of beefy mechanical instrument controllers, I was warmed up to Author & Punisher through the Pressure Mine release earlier in the year. The project had drifted from my mind and so Beastland hit me like a tone of bricks. These monstrous droning industrial soundscapes of power and might play like a mechanical monstrosity facing the scorn of its creator. The pain and suffering imbued in the thick haze of flickering distortion is monumental. Its stride through the fire is wielding and burdensome as these pounding base kicks and snares fair through a wall of industrial noise smothering them with a cold, unforgiving darkness that every track runs through a different crevasse of.
The record opens on a tamer... yes tamer note, Pharmacide. Its construct a rigid design of peaked, distorted, jolted synthesizers culminating in swirls of unrecognizable sound as a dystopia atmosphere is laid upon us. Some how things ramp up with Nihil Strength and Ode To Bedlam as roars of crushing screams and thudding baselines lead an assault upon the listener. Although it roots its stance firmly in an ugly, brutal setting, somehow buzzing synths howling in despair create a sense of epic and growth against an unforgiving soundscape that is trying to drag everything down with it. The aesthetic is gruesome, every Industrial characteristic exaggerated into constant collision, masterfully manipulated by underlying songwriting that's smothered by the dizzying onslaught of ripping instruments, tearing into each other, fighting for space.
I'm truly impressed at how much peaking, distortion and incomprehension can be turned into a musical treat. Its utilization in birthing atmosphere is remarkable, if not hellish, dark, miserable and full of sweaty suffering. The crashing and thudding of militant percussion is at constant odds with overtly thrusted synths. Everything is competing for that glimmer in the lime light. With that a minimalism reigns supreme through a web of dense aesthetic chaos, the underlying music itself given its rise when time. The production is a marvel of itself and its songs have their individual markings with an ear for balance as its darkest avenues yield to respites and creaks of dark melodies in the attune moments. A visionary record fondly reminiscent of Post Self. Somehow its darker, meaner and bolder than that plunge into depravity.
Favorite Tracks: Nihil Strength, Ode To Bedlam, Night Terror, Beastland
Rating: 8/10