GNTQuick note before we start, you may have seen advertising for a collaboration album from this band “Gnaw Their Tongues” and the Uk’s equally twisted purveyors of filth “Dragged Into Sunlight”, but this is not that album, although for the record I am very much looking forward to hearing it.

If you are unfamiliar Gnaw Their Tongues is an experimental band that’s somewhere between industrial and black metal, but whilst having clear elements of both it doesn’t conform to what you would expect from either genre and has a lot more going on in terms of experimentation, it’s a band who’s songs often decay into prolonged sections of hellish mind bending noise with no tangible sections or structure and seemed to have been composed purely to make the listener uncomfortable, and this latest offering is a perfect example of that.

I recently reviewed the new Author & Punisher album, and explained how I was surprised at how much groove was in it and easy it was to follow, and that I had expected it to be much harder to approach, with much more noise and twisted ambience to it, well my first listen of the new Gnaw their Tongues sounded exactly what I expected form that album, as in the first listen through was
a real test of endurance, but in the best possible way.

Right from the moment you press play, this album comes right at you with hellish industrial noise, tortured howling vocals and twisted indecipherable song structure. It’s clear from the outset this album does not want to be your friend, it wants to make you uncomfortable, to get in your head and twist your mind like a rabid dog savaging a helpless fluffy animal, which is actually what it sounds like at times.

As the album progresses it takes you on a twisted journey through the darkest places of your mind, it has a deranged sense of ambience with so many layers and creepy elements to it that it’s almost impossible to describe the depths of the sonic evil presented here.

The closest I can get is if someone had commissioned Hunter S Thompson to produce an album entitled “Fear and Loathing… In Hell”. It creates that same vibe described by the late drug adventurer in his darkest moments, a constant sense of tension and claustrophobic horror of being control by a malevolent force you don’t quite understand, but you find yourself so intrigued and
exhilarated at the same time that you love it in the most messed up kind of way.

If any of this sounds off putting, it should, but not in a bad way at all, this album is unquestionably brilliant, but it’s a brilliance you will only discover if you have the patience (and the stomach) to get accustomed with its twisted approach and content.

So after repeated listens I personally love this album, maybe I am a glutton for punishment, or maybe It Has left me with Stockholm syndrome, It’s genuinely hard to know, but I love it all the
same.

It’s a hard album to recommend to just anyone, but I recommend that everyone who likes extreme music gives it a go, if you are looking for something more unorthodox and you enjoy bands like
Sunn O))), Dragged Into Sunlight etc then this is essential listening.

(8.5/10 Mark Gleed)

https://www.facebook.com/Gnaw-Their-Tongues-128655237208690

http://gnawtheirtongues.bandcamp.com