Coming seemingly from out of nowhere Spider God a UK based act and predominantly the work of G ascertained themselves with some very distinctive EP’s and splits of black metal / guitar shred in the early 2020’s. The zealous and multi-flowing melodies of these works certainly caught attention and led to some notoriety when they released an album of pop covers done in their own innovative style. You can read about that album Black Renditions which came out early in 2022 on these very pages. You could even listen to it and decide whether it is a tongue in cheek work of genius or crazed lunacy, there is no middle ground. G has expanded the group to play live which they have done with some success with a sold out show with likeminded artists Revenant Marquis, The Oracle, The Sun’s Journey Through The Night. Swiftly following on from this we have Fly In The Trap, a debut full-length of original recordings.
Narratively we do get some insight here as it is inspired by the strange story of Elisa Lam, “the young Chinese-Canadian woman whose body was found submerged in the rooftop water tank of her LA hotel in 2013.” I remembered this due to the similarities between it and Hideo Nakata’s ghostly Dark Water film of 2002. Its kind of a locked room sort of mystery of how on earth this disturbed lady ended up getting herself into such a bizarre position or if she was a victim of a very odd crime. There’s no shortage of information to be found on the subject matter and there’s even a Netflix documentary you can watch if you feel so inclined. Despite this and as we have discovered previously with this equally odd project it does not mean that musically this is a miserable listening experience. Nope Spider God even manage to make tragedy sound happy here…
The second the album kicks in with opener ‘The Fifty Second Murderer’ you are launched into a wild ride that pretty much doesn’t stop for the next 40 minutes. A crazed cavalcade of riffs always with that compelling Asiatic musical motif flies out the speakers in a delirious fashion. Vocals are snarly yaps which punctuate in an abrasive, gnarly fashion over the tumultuous and hectic frenzy of the music. It knocks you sideways, leaves you feeling like you have been dragged through a hedge backwards and that’s just the first song. It’s also instantly identifiable, no other band sounds quite like Spider God. Having the CD with the illustration of the lift our doomed Elisa got in for her last ride to destiny and the obviously well-researched lyrics makes the whole thing even more disquieting and one does feel compelled to read along as we gallop through things. There’s some wonderful melodies which really get in your head, make no mistake. Sometimes as on ‘Traces Of Hubris’ there are snatches that seem like they could have come from tunes of popular culture but you never quite be sure. It’s all rather clever.
Maybe it’s the snarls, maybe the thrash at speeds of absolute obliteration but ‘A Thousand Lonely Spiders’ does remind a fair bit of arch nutters Sigh and I immediately have to suggest that this lot are added to the bill with them and Anaal Nathrakh in London on the 14th Dec. This would be absolutely perfect! The vitriolic surge of ‘The Hermit’ proves the dichotomy of being downright infectiously joyous at complete odds to the grim subject matter although I’m sure its just style over any lack of respect. ‘Labyrinth Of Hallways’ does surprisingly slow things into a bit of a moody waltz and with subject matter provokes a ghostly feel that these corridors are haunted. Of course its not long before the blur of speed is maintained again and there are also some clean backing vocals courtesy of Rope Sect’s Inmesher Those snarls are also augmented by a muttered spoken passage by Dan Eyre of A Forest Of Stars and Revenant Marquis on ‘Flies In The Trap’ but it’s likely that the repeated line “swing low, sweet chariot, carry me home” is what is going to really catch your attention here. The pit storming bravado of ‘Hiroshima Mon Amor is simply massive and lays a destructive path around it and before you realise it we are at the final track wondering just what the hell hit us.
This really is some out-there batshit crazy stuff make no mistake and what people make of it remains to be seen. It could well propel Spider God from the underground to bigger things if that is the journey they want to undertake; stranger things have happened and let’s not forget the unsolved demise of the figure at the heart of all this. The final words “Rest In Peace Elisa Lam” say it all.
(8.5/10 Pete Woods)
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