Anything involving Davide Tiso promises to be interesting, challenging and disturbing and this always looked to be the same. When we start talking about one minute bursts and three minute nightmares exploring “themes of mental illness, psychological deviance, rage, gloom and paranoia”, this reinforces the view. I know Mr Tiso from his work with Ephel Duath and Howling Sycamore, and just seeing his name in his band guarantees being taken to creative extremities. Part of the quartet which makes up Red Rot is Luciano George Lorusso is the Ephel Duath vocalist from the era of “Pain Necessary to Know”, a candidate in my book for the all time most disturbing and creatively distorted albums.
The monotonous sound rings out like an emergency is upon us. Lorusso roars. The sheer heaviness and driving force of “Ashes” put us in our place. Dark atmosphere is heaped upon dark atmosphere. The music is noisy, extreme in nature as you’d expect but infused with suggestive lines and subtle drumming. “Near Disaster” goes down a notch. The instrumentals wander, stop and start. The vocals comprise moans and growls. Dark and uncompromising, I’d suggest we’re very close to the disaster. But we’re left in doubt and above all discomfort. Obscure and extreme, that’s what it is. “Everlasting Creature” borders on metal insanity. “After the Funereal” is all that it suggests to start, featuring a vocal dirge, before heading into the experimental metal style to which we are becoming accustomed and finally the pungent tones of that funeral. After a nondescript blast, “Greatest Failure” gnaws away unpleasantly at our psyche. The torture goes on with these short cameos.
Sometimes it’s funereal like “Conversation with the Demon”. It’s always a world that seems liable to collapse in the weightiest, most abstract way. “Dualism” and “Emotional Neglect” pound us into the ground. The sound is deep and grainy. “Abrasive” is a word I saw to describe the style of this album and that’s about right. Some are aggressive, while others like “Gruesome Memento” are in part rancid and creepy, that is before the artillery cuts in and assault blends with downright evil and nastiness. And this nightmarish piece only lasts three minutes. “Harsh” is another word I’d attribute to this album. “Dishonourably Discharged” fits the bill. “Maelstrom” which follows provokes two other words – tuneless and shapeless, except in the sense of the relentlessly dark assault. With “Dysmorphia” comes an explanation: this is about a man trapped in his mind, having flashbacks and losing touch with reality. It sounds like all of this. As the album progresses in its dark and threatening way, it is increasingly evident that we’re not going to find it in the Easy Listening section. The shadowy vocals which feature on a number of tracks provide a nightmarish element again to the deep and hostile avant-gardery of “Under Attack”, another shapeless but menacing affair. A couple of dark ambience remain and we reach the end of this album of breakdowns, psychological trauma, intensity, harshness, and the sulphuric essence which Davide Tiso acknowledges as an ingredient of Red Rot.
I won’t deny that this is a difficult album to listen to. I know I wasn’t supposed to purr over it either. “Mal de Vivre” is mind-expanding and through extreme composition is a snapshot of unpleasant tableaux which conjure up mental disturbance in harsh settings and violently challenge our fragility.
(7/10 Andrew Doherty)
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