Tag Archives: Richie H-R

Pig Heart Transplant – For Mass Consumption

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PHT

 

Why do we listen to music? The standard answer would be “because we enjoy it”, but the language used to praise “Extreme Music” often suggest the very opposite of enjoyment. We often describe the albums we love as “harrowing”, “inhuman”, “torturous” – to people who don’t know the language of Metal, it’s not clear why these are good things.

With For Mass Consumption (Iron Lung Records), PHT’s Jon Kortland has created music which reminds us why those adjectives are usually reserved for bad things. That much-abused label “Industrial” is the most relevant here, in the form presented by Leechwoman and early Godflesh – cold slabs of alienating, joyless noise generated by guitars and electronics, topped by abrasive shouted vocals and stark aesthetics. This is bleak, amelodic music focussed on repetition and suffocating rhythms.

If you’re thinking that it sounds pretty good, that’s because you’re missing a key factor. In one of the strangest musical decisions since letting Phil Collins sing, every track on For Mass Consumption is around forty seconds long. Plenty of Grind bands have made compelling albums with shorter tracks, but they do this by maintaining a furious pace and layering tracks together so that song-change is essentially key-change. With Pig Heart Transplant, practically every track starts with a slow build-up, gathers momentum until it seems about to go somewhere, then stops and lets the cycle begin again. It’s like an album of intros, to the extent that I actually checked that I hadn’t been sent an advanced release with only samples of each track – but no, this is how it’s meant to sound. It’s frustrating, because there are several moments on the album when they start to overcome the limitations of their sound and build up an effective atmosphere, but it’s over in seconds and the slow build starts again.

No doubt I’m missing the point. Kortland has clearly set out to create an album which alienates, confuses and prevents anything as crass and obvious as enjoyment, and he’s doubtlessly succeeded – I just can’t honestly recommend that anyone listens to it.

3/10

 

RICHIE H-R


Avulsed – Carnivoracity (20th Anniversary Reissue)

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The fact that Spanish Death Metal was never really a “thing” is despite the hard work and commitment of Mr. Dave Rotten. As a promoter, label boss and vocalist, he was the tireless mentor and visible face of Spain’s nascent 90’s Death Metal scene, and still regarded as a hero to many of the musicians and fans who grew up in that scene. With this enhanced reissue of his own band’s first serious release, Rotten’s own Xtreem Music label aims to celebrate not only his music but the scene he passionately tried to build.

Despite Rotten’s obvious passion and commitment, however, the music on this new edition of Carnivoracity (Xtreem Music) suggests a reason why his beloved scene never really grew beyond its inspirations. Consisting of the initial three track EP (two originals and a Pentagram cover) and a further nine live tracks, there is nothing particularly wrong with Carnivoracity. This is solid, competent Death Metal very much in the 90’s American style, and the live tracks sound surprisingly sharp and heavy. The band’s enthusiasm and passion for what they’re doing shines through constantly – Rotten’s between-song banter in particular reveals a man whose clearly doing exactly what he dreams of, even if you can’t speak Spanish.

The problem, such that it is, is simply that there’s nothing special here. There were a lot better bands doing the same thing in ’94, and there have been a great many since. You can hear Avulsed’s inspirations clearly, but on this record they have no identity of their own.

This is one of those releases that it’s hard to recommend, not because it’s bad but because it’s not clear who’d benefit from buying it – fans of Cannibal Corpse, Monstrosity or early Malevolent Creation will enjoy it, but will already own a shelf full of albums that are better, and those who prefer something quirkier or more abstract in their Death Metal won’t find very much here. Hardcore Avulsed fans or Spanish Death Metal completists may want it for the live tracks, but even within Death Metal, they must be fairly niche groups.

5/10

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RICHIE H-R


Empire Auriga – Ascending The Solarthrone

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empireuriga album review

I’ve written about the somewhat abusive relationship between Black Metal and Dark Ambient before – on the one hand a perfect marriage of aesthetics, on the other an awkward combination of dynamics. Metal is about stuff “happening”, runs the argument against – beats blast, riffs grind, stuff is undeniably occurring in an active and confrontational way; Ambient music, conversely, is deliberately passive and restrained. Nothing happens, to put it crudely, generally on purpose.

Michigan three-piece Empire Auriga’s contribution to this debate is to muddy the waters further, playing an equal-parts hybrid of Black Metal and Dark Ambient in which nothing happens, yet manages to do with a sense of drama. Majestically slow guitars and synths trace out barren, sparsely instrumented abstract shapes, around which echoing vocals and flickering static call out like transmissions from a long-dead star.

One of the first things to notice about Ascending The Solarthrone (Moribund Records) is how beautiful it sounds – the guitars in particular are unbearably fragile and ethereal, calling to mind crystalline structures drifting endlessly in the gulfs between stars. Their sound is pitched perfectly for the atmosphere they’re conjuring, and there are moments of genuine hypnotic beauty. Maintaining a sense of drama and engagement with such deliberately passive music is no easy task, however, and unfortunately they don’t entirely pull it off – over the course of these eight tracks your attention will wander, and for everyone moment that draws you in to its fragile sparsity, there are another two that will just float into the background.

Overall, Ascending The Solarthrone is one of those frustrating albums that’s so close to brilliance, but not entirely there yet. The tone and aesthetics are perfect, it’s bold and distinctive and they’re very much forging their own direction, but ultimately it comes down to a question of style against substance – at present they have bags of the former but not quite enough of the latter. Their masterpiece lies in their future, I think, but until they get there this is an engaging if not entirely satisfying taste of their potential.

7/10

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RICHIE H-R