This poor little cub has been left on our reviews list all alone for some time, unloved with no interest and I felt sorry for it. A few days before release into the wild record shops I thought I best have a listen. The trio from Missouri have been around since 2007 and have one full length ‘Shame On Us All’ 2012 prior to this one on the lovely sounding Pissfork Anticulture Records. Obviously they have done something right to be grabbed by the much more established Season Of Mist and I was curious to find out what that was. There is plenty of misanthropy about the album title and the band describe themselves genre wise as ‘Unpleasant’ although getting down to brass tacks it’s of a blackened sludge nature. The album was produced by Sanford Parker and the press blurb states they have the mood and atmosphere of bands such as Skinny Puppy and Goblin. Although I have not found this at all on the album I think the underlying electronic parts no doubt crafted partly by the producer are the reason for this description.
One thing not under dispute is that this is pretty nasty and extreme stuff. Brooding in with a bleak guitar tone and some slow electronic pulsations intro Phobetor sets things up before ‘Mass Green Extinctus’ spreads its fronds and chokes life out of things. An explosive dervish of hate-filled snarling guitars and harsh barking vocal snarls hones in and the powerful drumming and battering tone has some off kilter guitar leads flailing away through it all. It’s a short sharp shocker of a track designed to draw you in and things expand a fair bit from there over the album’s ten numbers. Vocals from Rick Giordano have a suitable full throated retch about them, bordering on a nasty hardcore delivery and the fast riff work keeps you on your toes never knowing what convoluted path it is going to take next. There is a juddering Voivodian feel powering amidst tracks like ‘Nothing Lies Ahead’ and no doubt due to the producers part again the odd nuance that reminds of Nachtmystium at their strangest crops up now and again.
It’s hate that is the ultimate force driving things forward though and the bleakness jousts with more upbeat surges and sinister instrumental quirks. At full stretch they have the consuming everything in their path locust destruction of band’s such as Lord Mantis about them, hell there’s also the loathing and nihilism of Today Is The Day when they jaggedly pulverise their instruments and vocals roar at their hardest. Things are kept on a leash to an extent, tracks are not overplayed and the album is an accessible 40 minute listening experience, any more might have been too much. It’s good apocalypse end-times music for those waiting for the world to collapse; this is summed up neatly with the striking classical album cover art. There could be a bit of a horror obsession going on too, band photos show the players wearing shirts for Day Of The Dead and the Dead Zone and the giallo overture of Four Flies could well be based upon the early crazed killer output of Argento. It certainly has madness at its heart.
‘Existence Is Horror’ although not blowing me away by any means proves a solid listen and no doubt does exactly what it sets out to achieve. If you are looking for something corrosive and deadbeat to listen to this will do the job and have you dwelling in darkness throughout.
(7/10 Pete Woods)
Leave a Reply