Released
1997
Label
Psychotic Records
Reviewed by
Kim Alexander
Contact
Black Dahlia
&
Tombstone
Visit
The Charnel Whorehouse
Last Edit/Update
06 April, 1998
Various Artists
True Pagan Gothic Industrial
Vol. II (Tape)
Track Listing
Side A
1. Immortal Agony -- Sex And Horror (10.00)
2. Valefor -- Reaching Black Death (6.32)
3. Chöd -- Barda Thodol (6.25)
4. Kranium -- Graves [For My Soul] (6.35)
Side B
1. Wierzba -- Melancholy
(5.15)
2. Blackshout -- Woman Juice (4.36)
3. Law -- Flows Through Me (6.42)
4. The Charnel Whorehouse
--
hasselhoffinahangrenade (3.35)
5. Arkanyus -- Desperation (5.12)
6. Les Amants Maudits --
Adelaide-Introspection (4.40)
This tape begins with a dark noisey percussion piece that will make your hair
stand on end. Immortal Agony -- Sex and Horror, Emanuel Lago's
work and owner of Psychotic Release Records, also in the band: Tombstone,
defines the sounds of horror and of course those associated with "Agony",
with this weighted sonic composition. Wicked sound samples and eerie, gutteral, heavily
treated vocal injections help smoothe the way to an even darker realm of noise, and
leading to a softer yet even more frightening electronic calling near the end of
this ten minute selection.
Continuing on with a band out of
the United States; Valefor's Reaching Black Death, which has a
female vocalist quietly talking through an intense wall of noisescape and slow icey
drumming, gives me goosebumps -- great effects... Which leads into Barda Thodol by
Chöd of France and opens with beckoning, heavily treated vocals or samples of
what sounds like a monk explaining in slow motion why we're on the planet and all the
mysteries of life, yet I can't make out what is actually said. Darn it anyway... In the
background is more noise layered with sounds of metal on metal, the drawn-out drone of the
vocals and possibly guitar samples, and sporatic drum beats. Evil...
The final track by Italy's Kranium
-- Graves For My Soul digs a superb spot on the release for a place not many would
care to travel with a dark experimental noise barrier, much like that of a small, slowly
evolving nuclear explosion, and back- ground drone, that slowly pulses as if trying to
keep itself alive.
Side B brings out a band from
Poland: Wierzba with Melancholy which opens with a terrifying slow steady
beat of noise and eventuates to include a dripping drone of chanting electronics. Blackshout,
a band out of Italy, sets the stage with soft rumbling chaos and shifting electronic
interference in Woman Juice... Law, another US band presents Flows
Through Me, which is sonically descriptive of being in the destructive zone of a
tornado yet drifting in a dream-like state at the same time, another good track for the
gothic noise enthusiast.
The Charnel Whorehouse (Severen Kane''s track/owner of Black Dahlia
Records out of Nova Scotia), continues with hasselhoffinahangrenade, a heavily
sampled work with a man preaching in the background as noise [what sounds like guitar] is
underscored with drums keeping irregular beats that drift in and out -- ominous...
Another band from Italy: Arkanyus
changes direction from the hard dark noise to a more gentle track with piano, twisting
synths and spacious overtones of harmonic ambience hanging in pure Desperation.
And finally, the French band: Les Amants Maudits extract a powerful sound
of rich slowly explosive drums pounding unrelentlessly with whirling intense sonics and
heavy gothic chanting accentuating the entire composition in Adelaide-Introspection.
This music is Not for the woosies
in the house. ;) If you like heavy dark experimental noise, with gothic-industrial tones,
these bands won't let you down!
Black Dahlia Records is
releasing a compilation in fall of 1998 near Halloween with 17 artists: Music For
Making Love To A Corpse. For more information about this release go to: Black Dahlia Records.
Visit
Black Dahlia
Records
(Related Site)