Yes it is time for more songs against praise from that diabolic duo Paul Ledney and John Gelso. Innovators within the USBM scene the group’s overtly blasphemous output is equally revered and reviled and if you have encountered it before and stuck the course then no doubt you know exactly what to expect. If you have not, well let’s just put it this way, their music is ‘extremitus in excelsis’ and it certainly is not for everyone. I approached this one with a lot of caution as the last 2010 album ‘Disgusting Blasphemies Against God’ had led to me having a panic attack on a coach whilst listening to it. Such was the foul and claustrophobic musical stench it was certainly not one for listening to in a dehydrated state on a carriage full of the scum of humanity. I have been more careful this time around though and hell I have not gone anywhere near this one with anything even resembling the whiff of a hangover.
Strangely enough I found myself loving this on pretty much the first couple of plays. It strikes me as slightly more approachable than before but that is not with any less extremity about it. That is there in spades as are the irreligious themes; I mean the first song is called ‘Ruptureholyhymen’ fer Chrissakes! It’s a cataclysmic deluge of sound and howling, almost white noise as it starts and many would no doubt turn it off before it coruscates into a foul sermon of scything guitars, battering drums and blood gurgling roars. It pretty much continues in this punctured vein over the next 33 minutes without offering a shred of mercy but how it succeeds is in the way that the melody that seeps through the debauched bestial lunging musicianship really has an impulsive groove about it. Heavy as the scorched breath of hell though it is, juddering leaden layers of this grooving tumult flow like an unstoppable field of brimstone spewed out from the gates of hell and it chases you through the album leaving you running in a blind panic trying to escape it.
If I had one word to describe the album it would be ‘virulent’ and it sums it up perfectly. It seethes, it stalks and ultimately it ravages. Tracks merge into each other and do not really need separate dissection although each have their own subtle nuances like the industrialised Godfleshian pummel of ‘Foul The Air With Blasphemy’ (a perfect fuck’n christmas carol) and the swarming locust guitar sound of ‘Definite Atonement.’ I do have to question the lyrical content and wonder if there are actually any? I think most of the times there are not as all I can decipher are hideous roars and growls. At other times I think perhaps something is being summoned or cursed but whatever it is would probably be completely unprintable.
As the ‘Ropes Of Hatred’ literally tighten and choke that claustrophobic intensity is there threatening to implode as the track snarls and goes so fast that it lurches and trips over itself in an attempt to keep up. Again there is another underlying bass driven melody that sounds like an out of control train hurtling towards oblivion. It’s probably the standout track of the album if I were forced to pick one. The 34 minute running time is quite enough, any more and I think this would have dropped me over the edge but as it is I am happy walking along as close to it as I can get without throwing myself over. Ah suddenly I hear some lyrics just about discernable as they rasp out ‘Jesus is dead,’ or perhaps it’s the unholy ghost just luring me in before last track ‘Water To Blood’ finally deconsecrates with doom laden lurches and rancid hateful flurries to completion.
Warning to not listen to this in public it will make you want to destroy everything around you. Definitely not for sheep!
(8/10 Pete Woods)
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