This French band are going from strength to strength. Their first EP was limited to just 13 copies and their split with Drog 40. This time around they are really pushing the boat out by releasing no less than 50 copies on disc! Yes I am being sarcastic a bit and always wonder about how worthwhile it is covering stuff that is released in such limited copies. Still they burned the tracks onto CDR and sent it in so I guess it would be rude not to do so, so here goes.
What we have here are three whopping tracks, the titles as listed by album name, weighing in at 61 minutes. If you guessed that stylistically this is grindcore, you get a big fat zero points and are frankly a tad daft. If you plumped at funeral, drone and doom, read on you are in the right place.
VII starts off with some big bass filled and booming slow drumming and a fuzzy crawling morass building within it. At first I was worried we were simply up for one note through the 18 minute duration (and indeed the full album). Head feeling like it could explode at any second it’s a relief when some quite high, clean and choral sounding vocal croons waft in. Nothing here is obviously going to be done in a hurry and it’s a case of just going with the flow. A loose twanging guitar gets attention and vocals hit the high spots around it as I wait for things to all come back crashing down, knowing that they will do so and eventually being proven right. You have to have a certain amount of patience here but despite the running time, on listening to the album things seem to go a lot quicker than expected. Huge cavernous throbbing sound and beefy bellows are now rattling the speakers and we are in a place of doom dementia as are the neighbours who are probably waking up to it wishing I wasn’t reviewing it on a Sunday morning. As I have a hangover they can suffer with me, this is indeed music for bastards! With shrill elongated guitar feedback and screams ringing out as it builds to a distempered climax, if this doesn’t shift head pain, nothing is going to!
The second slice of Pi eventually and heavily drones in, rumbling and reverb driving oh so slowly away. Truth be told there is not so much going on here and it is that lesson in minimalism that I have kind of feared, although it does shake around in the brain turning it into a big wobbly jelly. The track is a bit of a masochists endurance test and the throbbing tones and underlying quiet rasps and groans behind it are eerie and to a certain extent entrancing. Final slice of audio torture III already has more going on in it than in the entire last number just in the first few squealing tones before it settles down to make weird noises lasting for the next 26 bloody minutes! It’s best to do something constructive here whilst listening, cooking a three course dinner maybe or something like that! Luckily there is a bit more to this one and a sudden scream snaps you out of any reverie and if you had started that cooking prepare for a visit to a burns unit. As for going further into things here all I shall do is direct you to the bandcamp page where you can hear an abridged 18 minute extract of the track for yourself or buy one of the complete albums for 5 euros. As for me, I’m going to have to go and lie down for a while.
(6.5/10 Pete Woods)
Leave a Reply