Bahimiron - Southern Nihilizm
September 30 2008 at 03:54:34 AM  An especially volatile mix of derangement and occasionally cold clarity achieved only through pure fanaticism, Southern Nihilizm is the type of recording you would expect from folks prone to riding horseback on a ranch, semi clutched in hand. That's Bahimiron drummer Blaash, editor of Wheresmyskin zine, home to drunken ramblings on everything from self-harm to killing sprees, published so as to propagate further disaster. Smeared from cover to cover in his and maybe a few other people's blood. A little shocking, maybe, but also part of a long tradition. George Emmanuel killed kittens and carved the requisite sigils into his skin; Glen Benton branded brow and packed meat-puppets full of decaying offal. Antaeus frontman MKM looks like Kane Hodder's neck all over. Dead, Mayhem. etc. This penchant for mutilation is not what's interesting per se, but looking over the various pictures of the band and their accomplices, the devotion one sees is striking. Not simple cuts but angry gashes, sliced, picked, worked at. Arms which are practically flayed, wrists spread open like butterfly wings. A hateful dissection. Musically? The two actions prove to be not far apart. Trafficking in routine perversions, which look absolutely bland on paper, Bahimiron tap into the power behind even the most wasted images, boosted in no small part by the clearest recording the band has had, or could bear, to date. Quickly, the tracks become increasingly more hazardous, building bit by bit with speed and aggression from the opening of "The Cauldron Born," "Shattered and Crowned in Deceit," and "Amongst The Filth," where, tipped by a chaotic solo, the otherwise solid foundation begins to crumble, the relatively soothing vibrations disturbed, ravaged, scarred. The guitars even sound more "fleshy" this time around. Fuller, viscid, alive. There is some logic to these noisome violations after all, though the results are often sketchy. A rigor and discipline practiced for otherwise irrational purpose. As good as the first handful of tracks are, the album's second half is less striking and a full 40 minutes worth of material sounds like overkill for what they're trying to accomplish. While "Pillz and 90 Proof" is a unique if less forceful stab at bringing the dream-like strains of Norse BM into Bahimiron's sphere of bleary eyed, porch-drunk dissonance - lips on bottle and steel barrel as the tempo nods back and forth repeatedly - tracks like "A Shank in the guts" and the near three-minute outro "War, Whiskey and Sodomy" are complete throwaways. The one constant and main attraction to Southern Nihilizm is the threatening, often gasping but also scoured, guttural lows of vocalist Grimlord intoning the litany of self-annihilation, fornication and bloodlust. Even within that singular mindset Bahimiron have managed to up the ante since their debut two years ago, moving forward with increased severity and still greater promise. Yeah, I'll drink to that. [Todd DePalma] Comments (0)
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