I’m ultimately conflicted, because Geld has done some things on this album that are really quite brilliant (not to bury the lede, but Trench is a great song with a killer bassline, Prisoner & Guard’s last two minutes with feedback, dual metal plodding guitars, driving drums and bass) but the aesthetic choices; the over the top distortion/fuzz, the vocals being buried in effects and in the mix and the overall wobble of the entire album make the great bits almost impossible to discern. And maybe I’m an old, with busted ears, but when the first three and a half minutes of your record sounds like a wash of white noise with barely perceptable vocals, I’m not in. It doesn’t communicate anything to me, except that the artist decided that their ideas weren’t worth sharing. I guess this being vaguely d-beat, or more accurately an exercise in crasher crust (and I’d strongly suggest that they go back to listen to Gloom and pick up where with Gloom you can hear the different elements, and when the guitars kick in, you can continue to hear that other stuff; if you need a reference point, Nuclear Annihilation) and that the songs are about the horrors of war, but your guess is a good as mine.
I went off an read the promo materials for this, and the descriptors for this reference Burning Spirits (not at all) and 90’s Cleveland – ok again, that’s not useful in that 90’s Cleveland had diversity (Face Value, Integrity, GSMF… none of which sound alike) where this is a cohesive, albeit not to my particular tastes, sonic journey. If you like things noisy, blown out, and loud, this will suit your needs.
