So this is the big one, eh? The worst album you could find? The one that's gonna make previous torture feel like friendly banter? This is the one that's going to reduce me to a catatonic wreck, leaving me dependent on others and needing special care 24/7 for the rest of my life? The one that's going to have me wetting my knickers in terror and drooling like an idiot. The very worst thing you could possibly hit me with?
This is, in effect, my Room 101, here in
Well you know maybe it is. I've avoided reading up on these guys, and though I haven't had the courage to listen to any of their alleged music, I see words like “noise” and “experimental” that do send little trickles of hot fluid rolling down from the legs of my panties. From what I can gather from the song titles, these guys make Fleshgrind look like kindly grandparents, and Cannibal Corpse the sort of people you would leave in charge of your children or your pets without a moment's hesitation.
Of all the dark, nasty, scummy metal bands I've heard, read about or hastily avoided this month, I think these guys come closest to fulfilling the criteria for evil.
And maybe this album will kill me. It probably will. But if so, before I go, I have one last thing to say to you, my quirky little captor, my dungeon master, my nerdish little tormentor. You might call it a final, perhaps futile act of defiance.
So, time to put on my big girl panties eh? Okay then: do your worst. See ya in Hell! Perhaps from Heaven. (Who am I kidding? Good girls go to Heaven, bad girls go everywhere!)
An epiphanic vomiting of blood --- Gnaw Their Tongues --- 2008 (Crucial Blast Records)
Would you believe it? This album was not available on Spotify or Grooveshark, but I eventually found it on YouTube. Lucky me. Well let's see: I don't see any Neil Diamond covers, no twelve-inch megamixes and I doubt there are any ballads on this album, though “Sawn asunder and left for beasts” does have a certain romantic feel to it...
Yeah, this is going to be Hell on Earth isn't it? I don't think I've seen Batty so happy since he dragged me down here unconscious. No, I
was! Really! Seriously? You think I would come down here of my own free will? What sort of a sick bitch do you...?
Ah, he's going to enjoy this. So long, beautiful and perfect body. See you in the next life maybe, if I'm lucky. Well, can't put it off any longer: he's starting the CD and I am apparently going in.... Jesus, take my soul!
So there's a screechy slow guitar and what may be chanting to open (deep breath; stop looking at my tits Batty!) “My body is not a vessel, nor a temple, it is a repulsive pill of sickness”, which may qualify for the prize of longest song title ever, some screams, growls, like a deadly storm moving closer, inevitable, unstoppable, invincible. It's like waiting for the axe to fall, y'know? It's a reasonably restrained opening but you just know it's going to explode into madness and chaos any minute. And the song is over seven minutes long, so there's plenty of time. We're two minutes in though and so far it's still building I guess, sort of like an orchestra of the damned tuning up before the symphony of death and butchery begins.
Four minutes in and it's still a very atmospheric black metal introduction, but I'm not fooled. Albums like this have got me before, so I'm waiting with bated breath and clenched buttocks to see where this goes. Wow! Just checking on the lineup and I see it's one guy, who goes by the name of Mories but whose actual name is Maurice de Jong, and he's from Surinam. Interesting. I think thre are synths making most of those effects but I don't know as he's just credited with “everything”. So could be. How odd! First track is over and there's been no sign of the aural assault I expected.
HEALTH: 100%
The second track has what sounds like the confessions of a serial killer talking to the police I guess, with more atmospheric synth and maybe guitar as “Teeth that leer like open graves” rises on a very dramatic keyboard line, someone screaming in the background, though really low in the mix. I must assume that's Mories. I've certainly heard worse. Goes from high-pitched maniacal screams to low, throaty growls. The music here, I'm amazed to admit, is quite captivating. Almost cinematic. Everything has a sort of echo like quality, as if the music were being played in a vast cavern or empty ampitheatre. That's over now too.
HEALTH: 100%
That charming ballad is up next, and though it's slow --- as indeed all of this so far has been --- it's again dark and cloying, claustrophobic and scary. “Sawn asunder and left for beasts” is not a ballad though (I didn't expect it to be of course, nor for there to be any such thing on this album, however I didn't expect it either to be this ... bearable?) and if that isn't synth then this guy is either a genius on guitar or has a whole array of sound effects at his disposal. The vocal, such as it is, is offputting but compared to a lot of the black metal I've listened to this month it's not so bad. There are a lot of weird sounds and effects going on, some discordant, but I've heard much, much worse.
I have to be honest, this is something I would consider music far more than I would grindcore. I can hear melody, I can understand that the guy is making some very freaky sounds but they all seem to come together to form .... something, and the vocals as I say no longer bother me since I learned to sort of tune them out or relegate them to a side-listen. If I get through the next track you owe me your computer, Batty!
HEALTH: 100%
So now we're into the title track. There's a heavy guitar note and maybe piano, lots of screaming and screeching and the music has a very sort of horror-movie feel to it, but so far my knickers are completely dry, to my surprise. It's atmospheric, it's dark, it's disturbing on one level but quite impressive on another, especially given that it's one guy doing everything. It's not something I'd necessarily listen to for fun, but I'd rather this than Cryptopsy. At least, so far. Some sort of Latin prayer being recited? Devilish ritual? Kind of bells pealing sound and maybe a choir there in the background somewhere? Think it's moved on into the next track, kind of hard to keep count when you're hearing the whole thing as one piece on YouTube, but it looks as if we're now listening to “The sewer rats of Calcutta”, which I think is my favourite track (who ever thought I'd say that?) so far, with its really evocative underground feel and the taped voices running under it.
I'll email you an address you can send that computer of yours to, Batty!
HEALTH: 100%
So now we're on “And there will be more of your children dead tomorrow”, which has a really nice scary feel to it, a dark, oppressive atmosphere kind of offset by something like a violin or maybe just a guitar note rising? Heavy, dramatic percussion adds to the crushing feel of the piece, and I don't hear too much in the way of vocals, if they're there. I think it's more taped voices --- no wait, there's the growl. Yawn. I thought this was supposed to batter me into submission? Not this girl, Batty! Some voice is now talking about all the children who have been killed. Looks like Mories has an unhealthy interest in serial killers and murders. That's either bells or a piano, not too sure, and now a choir making a sort of angelic sound --- children being taken up to Heaven? Now that big growl-scream is back, and the music is heavy and dramatic again, taking us close to the end of this track. And here I stand.
HEALTH: 100%
The closer then is the longest track, eight and a half minutes, and “The urge to participate in butchery” has an almost ambient opening, with soft keys which then changes to dark piano and juddering guitar, but it's nothing I can't handle. Screeching again but, you know, she's used to it by now. I feel about as scared as when I listened to Thorr's Hammer, which is to say, not at all. I'm actually quite impressed with how this guy is forming his soundscapes, kind of like Austin from Panopticon, though with a much darker tilt on it of course. Bit like NSK from The Ruins of Beverast maybe. Pretty accomplished, really. Kudos to the guy, certainly knows his stuff.
HEALTH: 100%
You know, I think I get it. I think Batty and the others were just pullin' my chain. They were bigging this album up, trying to scare me, trying to make it seem worse, much worse than it turned out to be. That has to be it. All a big joke. That's the only explanation for how I've managed not only to come through this intact, but to actually almost enjoy this album I've been dreading and fearing for weeks now. Either that, or I have balls of steel. Oh no wait: I'm a girl aren't I? Well, I certainly have buns of steel, and Batty, after this, you can kiss them again!
Cos this girl has survived the worst you could throw at her, and now she's a-walkin' out of here with her head held ...
HEY! What's this? What happened to my boobs? Why are my legs not so slim --- oh. I see. Now that I've beaten his Torture Chamber, The Batlord's spell is wearing off and I'm returning to male form. Oh-kayyyy. Well, you know, it doesn't have to happen right away ... aw. Oh well.
Hey! What about my male clothes? Where are they? What? You can't leave me here dressed like this! A sexy, voluptuous woman in tight-fitting leather, that's fine. But a guy wearing a leather miniskirt? And stiletto boots? That's just weird man! How am I gonna explain --- where are you going? Come back! You can't just leave me here! Batty! Bat-tyyyyyyyyyy!
What do you mean, you'll leave me here as I left your hopes to destroy me, on a dead world, buried alive ... buried alive ... buried alive.....
You unmitigated bastard! I'll get you! You just wait!
BAAAAAATTTTTTYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!
