Silent Carrion - Suprematism EP I - IUPITER [EP] (2013, Self-released)

Silent Carrion has always been progressive and boundary pushing. It's the bread and butter, the heart and soul of the project. An amalgam of trip hop, electronica, dark ambient, prog and trace amounts of a myriad of other components. Established upon the first release, Ruins, in 2010 in Northern Italy, 2013 welcomed the beginning of an EP-based trilogy starting with IUPITER, the first Suprematism EP.

Right off the bat the Suprematism EP starts off heavier than previous Silent Carrion incarnations. Caustic aggression and hostile chaos ensues through heavily distorted guitars, programmed blast beats and an assortment noisy invocations, a bleak piano sometimes finding its way through the cacophony. There is a rich theme of turmoil and anxiety embedded in this work, a subject that may very well continue on or contrast with the remainder of the trilogy.

But where previous efforts were finely balanced, well-adjusted dark symphonies of careful instrumentation, Suprematism's discord borders on the outright offensive. Noise and industrial can achieve some sort of appeal through atmospheric courses and harsh moodsetters, but in that sense Silent Carrion belittles the very notion that this could be classified as structurally sound. It's entirely possible that their is a point to be made once the EP trilogy is complete, but at the time of writing that point is lost to me.

It is not until the final track (the live recording of "The Ground Seems Hollow" from Andras being considered a bonus track) that we can finally recognize the Italian ordeal. Silent Carrion has come full circle and yet again relies on synth-driven ambience, which again contrasts highly with the first ten minutes of IUPITER. There is little structure to be found, and even so the compositions don't even feel complex as much as merely disorganized anarchy. 3/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Suicide
2. I'm Calm Now
3. Malphas
4. Human Maggots Swarming Round Her Bed of Death
5. Suprematism (Mercy)
6. The Ground Seems Hollow (Live)

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Avulse - We Are All Code [Full length] (2012, Broken Limb Recordings)

Patrick Hasson from Maine, USA, has numerous releases and various projects under his belt, including the atmospheric black metal experience Auspicium and the funeral death/doom getup Black Chalice, both of which I have previously reviewed. Having now listened to the next in line of Hasson's projects, Avulse - which is supposed to be crusty black metal with a firm punk vibe, I can now say that Hasson (or "Diseased" as he calls himself in Avulse) has a somewhat recognizable sound and style born from, as he states, copious substance abuse and simple songwriting with a gritty guitar sound. Hasson's style is so profound that all his projects seem like small variable aspects of the same thing.

Hasson himself describes Avulse as "a drunk asshole with a guitar jerking off to Von", which seems like a proper summary of the music found on We Are All Code, the third full length album from the band. The self-proclaimed punk vibe could well be attributed to the, for the most part, short song length, gritty production and shoddy playing. In all honesty the album sounds exactly like what you would think it sounds like from the description. Half-assed "riffs" on top of the distant clicks of what I assume is the drum track with whispered, raspy vocals in the background. There is little form, rhyme or reason to be found with the band, and the album consists of 12 tracks of unnoteworthy, quantity-over-quality tracks of punked up black metal with no hooks.

The lengthiest songs (and I use this term loosely) are by far the most well-written. The album's title track isn't half bad, and the second track, Flames of Liberty, is a tiny bit above the rest in terms of quality. From experience I know that the man behind the band can in fact write some pretty good songs, and the title track in particular attest to that. Hasson is a somewhat accomplished songwriter, but only in the songs where he has actually put in a little effort does this show. The rest, I'm afraid, is a slobby mess. As such the title track and the two cover tracks are also the only ones that show any semblance to actual musical structure.

Alcoholic or not, We Are All Code seems like a waste of effort. The Auspicium and Black Chalice releases I've heard speak of more coherent songwriting skills, and as such Avulse may just be a way to vent frustration whilst in a drunken stupor, but most of the tracks on this third album would probably be better off not being released. It boggles my mind that there are at least 2 other albums, a split, two EP's and a demo more of this stuff out there, because if this album is at all representative of the overall quality of the songwriting in this one-man band, it's not worth checking out. 3/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. I Drink, Therefore I Am
2. Flames of Liberty
3. Youth is Wasted on the Stupid
4. False Flag
5. Now or Then
6. Phagocytosis
7. Veteran's Day
8. 100 MpH
9. Black Denim
10. No Friend of Mine (Slapshot cover)
11. Hope (Descendants cover)
12. We Are All Code

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Filsufatia / Twilight Fauna - Fallen Leaves in a Tide of Sorrow [Split] (Self-released, 2013)

Black metal's reputation for being badly produced and easy to play has brought with it a ton of "bedroom black metal bands", often of the one-manned kind. In continuation of this there are a lot of below-bootleg quality EPs, demos and splits in general cirkulation.
On the "Fallen Leaves in a Tide of Sorrow" split two one-man black metal bands with a token appreciation for the origins of atmospheric and depressive black metal give their own impressions of how to emulate that familiar sound and feeling of bands such as Burzum, Drudkh and Alcest. Though Ravenwood's Twilight Fauna and Deep's Filsufatia don't resemble the afforementioned bands as such there is definitely the tinge of clear influences among their compositions.

Hailing from a place as unlikely for black metal as Malaysia, Filsufatia has since 2006 released a steady stream of demos with Fallen Leaves in a Tide of Sorrow being the first split. Filsufatia's music consists of a myriad of decent guitar melodies accompanied by sombre piano tones, but the music is ultimately dulled down to near unlistenable garbage because everything is more or less programmed or at the very least hugely processed through a computer. The melodies come off as alright, but the tunes themselves can't bear the weight of the music. The amount of horrendous FL Studio-sounding instrumentation really numbs the experience to the point where it almost seems like it was made for someone else to practice to.

With Twilight Fauna from Tennessee, USA, we're back in a familiar setting this time more appropriately billed "atmospheric" rather than "depressive". Twilight Fauna started out in 2011 and has since released a few albums and splits. Ravenwood's compositions in Twilight Fauna consists of a ragtag collection of drums with some monotone unthoughtful pseudo-riffs thrown into the mix. To top it all off are his harsh vocals which are delivered at such a whispering volume that they hardly qualify as such. The end result is a rather unmelodic collection of chaotic bedroom "black metal" with little rhyme or reason and little consideration for rhythm.

All this aside the two bands go well together. Though they are billed as depressive and atmospheric black metal respectively their music is rather similar. Perhaps even too similar. If I didn't know any better I would be inclined to think the two one-man projects were one and the same, because the small differences in the songwriting aren't that big. Filsufatia is more melody oriented, and Twilight Fauna more inclined to atmospheric riffs, and these qualities are also made manifest in their different sounds. I suppose this is where they distinguish between atmospheric and depressive black metal.

The best track on the split is by far A Silent Agony by Twilight Fauna. It's mostly text book guitar chord compositions with a few haunting melodies and vocal parts thrown in the mix (think Diablo II's soundtrack). It's not something entirely out of the ordinary, and it certainly isn't metal, but it works rather well compared to the additional contents of the split. It's not much, but it's something. Fallen Leaves in a Tide of Sorrow is bland and straight up boring. Filsufatia doesn't make depressive black metal sound melancholic, emotional, painful or beautiful and Twilight Fauna doesn't manage to put enough atmosphere into atmospheric black metal (or maybe the problem is that it's so atmospheric it stopped being music). 3/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Twilight Fauna - The Cold Air of a Solitary Night
2. Twilight Fauna - A Silent Agony
3. Filsufatia - Laverne (A Million Miles Nowhere)
4. Filsufatia - The Grand Eulogy (Welcome Home)

Twilight Fauna official site
Filsufatia official site

Various Artists - 8 Way for Destroy the Music [Split] (2011, Shit Music for Shit People)

Music has become progressively more aggressive since the dawn of time, more or less. There will always be individuals who seek to push the boundaries. But with genres like powerviolence and grindcore is it even possible for music to be more extreme without seizing to be music, like the noise genre? The bands featured on this split are certainly pushing the limit with their individual mixes of grindcore, noise and droney industrial. It's something called noisecore and the title says it all.

It starts off with Culo from Chile. Culo delivers 18 songs coming in at almost 3 minutes. Their style is mostly headpounding noisecore with vocals screamed at the top of the lungs and saturated with inaudible guitars and blasttastic drums. The Chilean band sets the tone and grindmasters Disinterested Handjob from the land Down Under quickly follow with their 6 equally short bursts of rapidfire, though their general outlook is abit less noisy than Culo.
The Equadorean band Menso Noise offers a lengthy track mostly consisting of a guy talking in portuguese with concentrated blasts of grind. On the next quest to destroy music is the American band Gorgonized Dorks which is somewhat a surprise on this release as the music could probably best be described as industrial drony noise with occassional explosions of ear-tearing screams and distorted instrumentation. Quite apocalyptic, really.
Going in a different direction the Danish shit-themed grindcore band Fækal Omsorg (Fecal Care in English) are the only band on the release to have actual riffs and what could very well be actual song structures. The Danish toilet-warriors have a more well-defined sound and a much better vocal performance than most of the bands on the split.
Next comes Drongo, another Australian grind-mutant. Drongo's 11 cellphone mic-quality songs sort-of stand out from most of the music on this split by having parts that sounds predominantly black metalish. The last two bands, the Americans "Infecting the Dissected" and "Video Nasty", are more of the obvious Anal Cunt worship that's generally going on here on this split. Borderlining plain noise these two enemies of melody and harmony offer their cacophonous paroxysms of noise as a final prayer and sacrifice to the gods of noise.

The average song length on the split can't be much, and it would seem that this tendency to blink-of-an-eye lengthed tracks is an ongoing trend amongst noisy grindcore bands. The influences from Napalm Death's first album "Scum" and the noisecore legends Anal Cunt are numerous and obvious, ranging from the songs that are barely even music to the "micro-songs" that have become so fashionable in grind music.

I must say that rating and grading a split like this is a rather troublesome task. The music is utterly chaotic and mind-numbingly vile, but since this is most likely the goal it would seem that the bands of the release have succeeded. And then, if I give them a low grade like 3 or 4, would it be seen as a great compliment or a grievous insult?
For the most part I'd say that it was very difficult to enjoy this split. Perhaps that was intended. Be that as it may, I enjoyed Fækal Omsorg's part and I was rather surprised to find that I also enjoyed the one track by Gorgonized Dorks.
All in all I think this split deserves 3/10 guitars. Whether this is good or bad, I'll leave for the readers to decide.

Tracklist:
1. Culo -18 Songs
2. Disinterested Handjob - Vashta Nerada (Count the Shadows)
3. Disinterested Handjob - We're All Fucked Now
4. Disinterested Handjob - A Commentary on Reznor in the Late 90's
5. Disinterested Handjob - Tainted Meat
6. Disinterested Handjob - F, F, SF
7. Disinterested Handjob - Stop Hating on Pigs
8. Menso Noise - FUA!!!
9. Gorgonized Dorks - Untitled
10. Fækal Omsorg - Soup
11. Fækal Omsorg - Filter
12. Fækal Omsorg - Crap
13. Fækal Omsorg - Spinach Cunt
14. Fækal Omsorg - Puke-Bomb
15. Fækal Omsorg - Turd Explosion
16. Fækal Omsorg - Noise Lung
17. Drongo - 11 Songs
18. Infecting the Dissected - Swarm of Flies
19. Infecting the Dissected - Decomposing Entrails
20. Infecting the Dissected - Delayed Corrosion and Decay
21. Video Nasty - Secticide
22. Video Nasty - Impaled Hell
23. Video Nasty - Suicide Kult Kill
24. Video Nasty - Divine Art of Shit Sex
25. Video Nasty - Madness Made Machine
26. Video Nasty - Clan with a Plan
27. Video Nasty - MagiSick
28. Video Nasty - They Burn like Witches

SHIT MUSIC FOR SHIT PEOPLE official site