Godflesh "Purge" (2023)

 

Six years on from the remarkable inspirations of Post-Self, the Industrial duo return lacking a refresh in creativity. Purge echos their early 90s output. Harsh bounce oriented drum samples loop incessant. With a thud, thump and hammer, simple kick snare patterns drone in repetition. Over top, burly shouts ripple into the void and dissonant guitars toy with distressing chords wedged between chunks of dense meaty groove. Its forty four minutes explore these ideas rigidly, with little to break the norm.

This gives Purge a keen sense of self. A moody, downtrodden, alienated and grim tone to wallow within. Highly repetitious, barely shifting tempo or switching gears, each song grinds out its point. The later tracks delve into atmosphere with expansive reverb casting shadowy spells and offering respite from its aggressive counterparts. Its a subtle diversity yet never leaves this deeply troubled musical space.

Army Of Non raises an eyebrow for its inclusion of a classic Hip Hop sample "Check it out yall". Its nestled quietly in there, a throwback to Pure and Let The Rhythm Hit Em. Broadrick's affinity for Hip Hop never quite manifesting into something radical, remaining a warm peculiarity for fans like myself. This moment gave a glimmer of what might follow but as laid out its a consistently dark and dismal record retreading old ideas competently but leaving one with an appetite for revived freshness.

Rating: 6/10

Author & Punisher "Krüller" (2022)

 

 Krüller is fantastic. It had me going back to Beastland to feel the difference, which is colossal. Author & Punisher is an Industrial musician with an edge. Using his own custom built VST controllers, Author manifests a physicality to his music. The punishing landscapes of weighty mechanical monotony birthed through sweat and tears. Beastland had a unruly harshness about it. With time, it faded from memory. Krüller on the other hand opens up with streaks of color nestled between its slow grudging strikes of percussion. His voice, now melodic and sustaining, gushes with painful emotions. Alongside the streaking synths that burst brief sparkles of reprieve, it becomes a memorable craft. The best of this musician I've heard to date so far.

Although this mostly speaks to the opening song, the through line is often the relation between voice and what offerings of melody come by. The record is dense in atmosphere, a wash of fuzz and static broken apart by the smashes of snares and collisions of kicks as its percussion arrives with a force overcoming any obstacle. They drag and groan, slugging with a lethargic crawl that subtly gives way to the fuzzy atmospheres as the record broods with each passing song. Through its lengthy drives, often six or more minutes, creeps of resolve briefly emerge, always fizzling back to the shadows. Its a burdensome experience. One worth enduring for its glimmers of hope.

Glorybox is my favorite song. The gravitas of pain the album encompasses initially had me hearing it as a transsexual expression. The cries of "Give me a reason to be a woman, I just want to be a woman" so harrowing and wrought with anguish. It mirrored pains of bodily identity, however turned out to be a cover of Portishead's original. Now I know it, I can hear the difference in the music, best revealed by the guitar solo. It still is a remarkable cover on a brilliant record that may be a little to weighty to remember every moment with the same thrill of its better parts. It must be said its peaks soar to a punishing and unique place you wont forget in a hurry.

Rating: 7/10

Clipping "Visions Of Bodies Being Burned" (2020)

 

Its album number four by Clipping, an experimental Hip Hop trio doing remarkable things with their mashing up of Industrial and Noise with Horrorcore Rap and spoken rhymed monologues. So far I've developed a great appreciation for the artistry and craft but lacked an emotional connection. The same is true again with another fifty two minutes that seem to emphasize the same response from me. There is a difference this outing though, more of what I connect with. That's mostly a banging beat to elevate the obscurity of these minimalist noisescapes that house the rhymes.

Clipping's unsettling and grim take on urban life and crime has its apt tone again. Either expressed through rhyme or Industrial dissonance, Say The Name brings it to current events with a gripping power to address the death of George Floyd. The most notable track however is found in the lurching paranoia of Check The Lock. The John Carpenter-esque melodies and haunting bells are an illuminating compliment to the click, clack and rattling of sparse and distant industrious world building noises.

Alongside the lyrical talent of Daveed Diggs, who's sharp as a blade with his despairing narratives, a host of features fall short of adding something memorable to the mix. I was delighted to see the inclusion of Ho99o9 but even their shout raps felt at odds with the abrasive instrumental below the pair. Beyond these points of remark, much of what I've written about Clipping before remains true, its mostly a jarring experience of conflicting instrumentation that paints physical discomfort.

 Its best exemplified by slabs of white noise between tracks and the maddening Eaten Alive, its loose percussive performance seems perfectly dialed up to maximum confusion as its dislocated pace grows with the clattering of kitchen utensils. When Diggs drops out we are treated to a couple minutes of completely unhinged sound. Its a novelty, one this band are capable of channeling into convention with thumping base and a sensible kick snare groove but it too is sparing on this outing, with much of the record being chalked into that particular confrontational space again.

Rating: 6/10

Author & Punisher "Beastland" (2018)

 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

Author & Punisher "Pressure Mine" (2018)

California musician and one man band Tristian Shone caught my attention with his recent documentary on the popular Noisey channel. Hailed as "Industrial Doom Metal" the more intriguing aspect of his music were the live performances, marked by the use of custom built controllers which are normally simple knobs, dials and sliders. In Shones case hes hand built big, weighty metallic contraptions, industrial in nature, that require some sweat and phsicality to manipulate as he pushes and pulls these machine like contraptions to forge the details of sounds formed by the VSTs on his DAW. Unfortunately its not obvious in audio form, his custom controllers are used in the composition and recording of the five tracks on this EP but they make no audible distinction from an expectant range of sounds that grace this short record. I wouldn't call it novelty, in fact I think its a fantastic approach to make the music more physical and involved but that only comes across in the live show. 

Pressure Mine celebrates a lack of comfort, wellness or embrace. Its textural journey travels through sterile dystopian soundscapes into the crevasses caught between darkness and evil. The mechanical grinding and whirls of truly Industrial machinery sound rich and detailed in construct yet spacious and devoid of intent. They mull away, acting as the percussive line while saddened, lost, catatonic melodies drift though, comatose and absent from surroundings. Tristian's voice lays bare and vulnerable in a soft small room reverb. Its cold, icy and distance from the other elements and initially seemed to lack some power. The chemistry makes more sense with repeated listens, as one gets their head around the atmosphere and abstract source of melodic value, his voice really becomes like a light drowning in the lifeless machinery its surrounded by.

The whole record works as a textural treat, the slow punishing drive of Doom Metal guides the rhythm to focus on its mechanics, never drifting into grooves or breaks and going slow enough to let each hit strike with shape and aesthetic. The music has a drone like quality as the pace crawls away steadily, obscure, haunting sounds drifting like echos and forming some notation to stir bleak emotions in this chilling environment. Nine Inch Nails have a a big and obvious impact on the constructs of this sound but its just an influence. Although the ties are strong and clear Tristian takes that inspiration to very interesting places within these five unforgiving songs.

Rating: 6/10

Godflesh "Post Self" (2017)

The clamouring chunks of battered carcass crash and collide as the desending weight of Godflesh's signature sound, the building blocks of noise that boom and blare as bloated chunks brimming with thudding guitars and rumbliung baselines, thunder in frieght between the fracas of furious dissonance thats wails between the roar and flails. The two pillars that support their iconic sound are tentatively pulled apart, the opening metallic grooves of "Post Self", "Parasite" and "No Body" find the discordant breaks between low end riffage stretched, expanded and pulled apart as the albums songs steadily plunge into harrowing, dark and introverted atmosphers of self psycadelia where guitar noise soundscapes reign supreme as experimentation strikes inspirational gold.

The listening experience of an album comes to life here as track skipping and attempted plucking of "moments" spoil the intensity of letting the forty seven minutes of music unfold into itself. The blackened hands emerge from the shade, grasping, smothering dragging one into the shadows of introspective ambiguity, the light that shines on but does not illuminate. The loud, visceral nature of the record is like a morbid curiosity that swells in your conscious, the fixation on an ugly mechanical beast lost, wounded in your paradise. Suffering, pain and anguish scream in agony as we observe from a distance, the industrial rumblings that motor and drill away as soundscapes of punishment play themselves out.

Broadrick's return to Godflesh in 2014 with A World Lit Only By Fire was rather disappointing. After such a long hiatus, a stripped back, bare bones, riff orientated metal album felt lacking as the most explored and obvious side of Godflesh was resurrected. With Post Self a wild pallet of tone and texture emerges as all sorts of influences and links signify themselves from the purpose of the music. The Industrial drum beats frequently pump and thud like decelerated EDM grooves, the deep textures of sound intensify viscerally like Power Noise, the sonic soundscapes of dissonant guitars echo Post-Punk bands and ravishingly stark synths in the closing tracks pull the likes of astral ambiance to the center of a bleak and harsh experience.

This record has reinvented the excitement once heard on Streetcleaner and Pure, the immediacy and indulgence of the record is sublime, a moody, sonic textural exploration peaked by endless strings of ideas that spark, the wailing, desperate screams on "Post Self", the intertwined noise and depraved screaming that burrows into hell on "Be God". The record is loaded with vocal work that masks itself into the wall of sound, even taking on robotic, electrified distortions on another track. With attentive ears many percussive abuses and glitches meld into the smothering sound... oh and how can one not delight in the glory of the guitars that rediscover themselves track to track in the rich density of effect drenched guitar tones. Its simply a stunning record with an obvious direction that really lets the entire album serve as an unfolding experience to leave one in awe of its apex.

Favorite Tracks: Post Self, Be God, Mortality Sorrow

Rating: 9.5/10

Death Grips "The Money Store" (2012)

Whatever curiosity lead you to this post I'd highly recommend opening a can of worms and giving this record a listen if your open minded with music. I became aware of Death Grips back in 2013 and despite initially not understanding the record I couldn't give it up thanks to the enthusiasm of music critic Anthony Fantano and this video which really helped me understand what the record is about. That video will say so much more about it than I ever could and so I thought id take personal reflection on what this record has done for me musically. Honestly music has never felt quite the same since, this one effected me so much Ive felt my horizons expand and my love of music grow ever since it cracked open for me. That didn't happen for at least ten listens or so, I would take a long walk every day dedicating my focus to it and slowly but surely it started to creak open and reveal its magic. I still find the experience strange as I'm accustom to abrasive, noisy music, perhaps not in the more electronically oriented style though.

In a nutshell Death Grips comes of as erratic, noisy, ugly and dissonant. Off kilt sampling and grizzly waveform rumbling baselines collide between solid percussive grooves with a lot of glitchy sounds splicing into the rhythm. Over the top of it MC Ride shout raps with a ferocity and unchained energy that makes up a huge part of the trios character. MC Ride may be one of the most exciting rappers of this generation, not for slick rhyming patterns or clever word play but for taking a different approach and pushing the boundaries of what is defined as raping. At many times he will sound more Punk than Rap has he shouts his way through songs. Lyrically its similar to Wu-Tang Clan's "free association" rhyme style where sentences don't often form a coherent line of thought but create an atmosphere or scene through its words, "Concussion blinding, not my fault, ankles tied to cinder blocks" for example. His delivery further expresses this artsy approach with free flowing spits that have a knack for a catchy hook yet break freely away from the beat or restriction of the beats tempo.

This knack for a hook is one of the remarkable things about the record, when peeling back the layers of its sound and slowly making sense of it all it becomes apparent that the songs are basically poppy, bouncy and catchy in nature. Loaded with lyrical hooks the accompanying instrumentals are strangely satisfying in their noisiness. The percussion is tight and banging, the core of the beat rocking but always feeling slightly obscured by experimental sampling and dense percussive noises that crop up in certain songs. Its melodic or tuneful value is twisted and distorted in this mess but they still carry the weight a good melody can.

From one song to the next it never lets up and each song here feels like an island, there is no formula or consistency to what can happen, each track is truly unique. "The Fever" and "I've Seen Footage" are the albums party tracks, toning down some of the eccentricities and giving the overall groove and hook more love. "Punk Weight" and "The Cage" get wild with noisy samples and electronic instruments going to extremes, unafraid of peaking the bass to extremes. Its remarkable, all thirteen tracks offer so much wild and eccentric delight to delve into, you could talk about them all endlessly as each track is loaded with oddities that culminate into wild, unchained, banging music. Death Grips are the most exciting band of the millennium and couldn't recommend this album more. Modern classic.

Rating: 10/10

Pharmakon "Abandon" (2013)

Hailing from New York, USA, Pharmakon is the moniker of Power Noise musician Margaret Chardiet. "Abandon" is her debut full length that confronts the listener musically and visually with its repulsive album art that is powerfully suggestive without any use of explicit imagery. It sets the tone for a depraved and dark record that will unsettle the listener. Unlike much music of this nature Margaret's compositions are in fact composed as opposed to improvisational pieces so often found in Power Noise and Depraved music. It is testament to this record where each track sets an immersible tone by design and explores the darker reaches of the mind with purpose and intent.

The instrumentals of this record are carefully woven soundscapes that brood and drone through lengthy periods. Detailed power synthesizers create an array of textured sounds that are stitched together with a minimalistic edge, forging a cold and unforgiving noise dragged along by slow, bludgeoning thuds and hits resembling a beat to guide a psychotic narrative. On their own the instrumentals are not as intense or abrasive as the overall mood of these songs, individually the instruments are not ear piecing or especially dark, more alien and industrial, but brought together they become nightmarish and dizzying experiences.

Margaret's biggest asset is her voice. The instrumentals set the tone, but it is her phenomenal scream and range of sound that drags you down to hell. Using some slight reverb and at times some additional distortion, these vocals cover a range of dark emotions, at times sounding like a tortured soul held against will, or a malevolent spirit that would inflict such torturous cruelty. On the track "Ache" you hear the two almost at communication with one another. On "Pitted" she executes some tribal, ritualistic clean leads that chant and dance through the fog. The overall execution and production of this record is solid, the crafted nature of the instrumentals and powerful vocals create a confrontational and immersible listening experience that leaves a lasting impression.

Favorite Tracks: Pitted, Crawling On Bruised Knees

Rating: 6/10