Gnod - Mirror
1. The Mirror
Very nice minimalistic groove, vocals and guitar drenched in reverb.
The heavier part towards the end is very enjoyable and the way the whole song kinda creepingly builds up to it makes everything seem very organic and logical.
2. Learn To Forgive
This one has a heavy, doomy vibe, none of the relatively relaxed groove from the first track. Great dissonant guitar chords, vocals similar to the first track. There's a sound that sounds like a siren pretty much throughout the track, probably made by a synth or a bowed guitar, that really adds to the anguished, apocalyptic atmosphere here.
3. Sodom & Gomorrah
The longest track begins with ambient sounds and some chanting, then gets into another slow, doomy number with almost spoken vocals. This is very slow and I love it being this way. The vocals actually remind me a bit of Mark E. Smith which is obviously a good thing. After about seven minutes we are back to dark ambient and chanting, which is great by itself but made even greater because one just knows that some heavy-ass riff is about to crush you any minute. The intensity is being built up by a droning guitar that gets louder and louder and then the riff returns, but in a fragmented way, like it's not quite sure whether it wants to stay. But it does and is accompanied by increasingly frenzied vocals and some atmospheric, screechy guitar, once again drenched in reverb. As this part continues everything gets mushier and noisier, but still based on the slow riff's solid foundation.
4. The Mirror (RAIKES PARADE REMIX)
A remix of the first track and very similar to it. Just a bit more of a dub sound, with even more focus on bass and reverb..
Conclusion:
I'm sure I've already heard one or two other albums by Gnod, but can't remember anything, so this is basically my introduction to their music.
Overall it's a very enjoyable album, with Swans probably being the closest comparison.
I think it's very obvious what I did like, so let's get to what I didn't or where improvements could be made:
Some parts could have been even more dissonant, screechy and noisy. After some of the build-ups I wanted my ears to be ****ed with a hedgehog, instead they were just fisted. Still fine, but left me a bit wanting.
The remix was pretty unnecessary and they should have left it off altogether or replaced it with another original track.
Apart from those relatively minor complaints it was fun and I will definitely revisit it and check out more of their stuff.
Rating: 7,5/10
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