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Spooky Fingers: I Drink My GINNNNN!

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 April 26 2009 at 06:46:31 PM



Texas is the reason. It makes odd sense Absu harkens from the home of some of America’s most egregious corporations – Frito Lay, Dr. Pepper/Snapple Goup, Inc., Metromedia Restaurant Group. The airbrushed nihilism perpetuated and cherished by every viral chain-restaurant and snack food denizen is no different than the production and aesthetic Absu champions on its fifth full-length, this self-titled, “comeback of reinvention” that mixes Persian themes with hyperactive and dismantling keys reminiscent of Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s most hyperbolic over-playing. Having submitted their share of exceedingly ripping shit – see/hear Tara – their disadvantage remains unspoken but obvious. Cards stacked high against them, Absu manages still to churn out a few praise-worthy tunes: “Magic(k) Square Cipher,” “Girra’s Temple,” and “Ye Uttuku Spells” are intensely acrobatic exercises, almost working as unsuccessful mergers of Dissection and Nile, an unhappy marriage of magisterial Metal and quasi-mystical shtick. And the cover-art, apparently lifted from a Dragon magazine circa 1985, doesn’t help. No thanks.

Graphs of demonical hierarchy, strange pictorial conflations of yoga and devil worship, Cthulhu as Shiva, pentagram – the morning star which lights the darkness of the world… So comes Nefandus’ second full-length, a beguiling morass of ritual and tradition transmitted with the same alacrity as Ofermod’s latest. In many ways Nefandus’ Death Holy Death is similar, if not superior to Tiamtu. The musical attack is distinct and passionate, the guitar work the sort of stuff that really brings the goose-flesh for me, and here, almost overdriven to the point of resembling some of the more spectacular and inventive moments on Women & Children First. Dive-bombing, tremolo neighs, glistening icy runs: It’s all here. And then Belfagor and Ushatar conflate close-chambered Qliphoth with Vegas-style stage-show: “Aina Lilith Opening her Womb” is just another embarrassing ambient interlude, which serves ineffectually to ground the music in some type of gravely serious religious tradition. A shame, really, as the rest of the program is excellent: Provocative, regal, reverent.

I can’t see how anyone could call a duo that writes obsessive songs about Hemingway, gin and Hunter Thompson Black Metal… But Wolves in the Throne Room’s sensitive dopes have helped to broaden the tents to include this sort of stuff as folks now prattle on about Black Metal being as much about connecting with “ancestral spirits” as it is Praise-Hell-Satan. I cannot imagine Cobalt’s Erik Wundler and Phil McSorely engaging in such banter: They did name their fourth full-length after one of Papa’s favorite tipples, as the author was notorious for vacuuming up a pitcher of gin rickeys and doing knife tricks for horrified crowds. Unless you’re big on reading lyric sheets, the Americana ends here. The music on Gin is far from dusty hero-worship: Die Kreuzen, Alice In Chains, various types of ethnic music all figure in the program. Wundler is just a killer drummer, thankfully, as tom-tom, snare and cymbal are pretty goddamn high in the mix. He could pitter-patter on forever, and often does, as McSorley cranks out peculiar and schizophrenic guitar parts that owe as much to Bitch Magnet, Tweez-era Slint, Mark Lanegan and Kim Thayil as they do Judas Iscariot. Further WTF? Moments supplied by jaw-dropper “Pregnant Insect,” a beast of a tune more soaring and surly than anything Perry Farrell imagined musically possible. “I smell you in my shit / on my pillow / In the sand in the air / In the breath of whores.” It’s Vollman meets Jodorowsky, and that’s just enough for me.

The volk at Sounds of Battle and Souvenir Collecting send me a parcel chock full of self-proclaimed works of “dROne; aRT/dOOM; experimental; dRug/metal; sataniC/celestial. Hmm. The only band I could really stomach I can’t even find the disc for any longer. It sounded like My Bloody Valentine, which was great, and then the drum machine and bedroom Black Metal vocals kicked in. This other band Gog essentially uses early Xasthur as a template and then dispenses with all the trappings that make early Xasthur a surprising success. Gog’s Noriah Mills CD-R adds some of the fathoms deep dread typical of bands like Winter, Thergothon and Nortt and walks the slow line to nowhere. I’m sure there’s an audience for this stuff, but I’m willing to bet my Mad Magazine collection I’d want to kill them all within three minutes of “social” contact.

[Stewart Voegtlin]

Comments (7)

  • 35 comments
    -c
    8:50 AM on Apr 27, 2009 // reply »
    i hold the same feelings about the Cobalt album as you. while it's a solid listen, i don't get the BM tag much.
  • 108 comments
    jniff
    9:51 AM on Apr 27, 2009 // reply »
    The new Absu didn't do much for me, but the Nefandus owns. Micayah is a rarity; amazing riffs, mad beats, and a knack for songwriting. The drumming on both the Ofermod and Nefandus is untouchable. Haven't listened to the Cobalt, yet...
  • 374 comments
    voegtlin
    9:58 AM on Apr 27, 2009 // reply »
    I wish they would've cut that one track. Almost ruins it for me. And, yeah, he's a killer drummer and guitarist.

  • 8 comments
    PFL
    3:17 PM on May 09, 2009 // reply »
    Personally I think Erik Wunder is ten times the musician than Blake Judd is.

    Cobalt are not black metal, they don't really consider themselves black metal (anymore at least), but the initial black metal vibe from the band's beginnings is still there and the duo's adherence to the genre (be it their attitude and the music) hasn't fully left; it will always permeate in some form or another, even if it's simply Phil McSorley's voice that pretty much is the only black metal semblance happening in "Gin".
  • 374 comments
    VOEGTLIN
    6:38 AM on May 11, 2009 // reply »
    Hey, Bruni: I will not argue with your assessment of Blake Judd.

  • 6 comments
    Robert
    8:56 AM on May 13, 2009 // reply »
    Just got that Cobalt record yesterday, and it's really good. Still looking for the "Black Metal", but I guess I can see how it could get lazily tossed into that bin.
  • 374 comments
    BANNED4LYFE
    8:59 AM on May 13, 2009 // reply »
    Yeah, it's a killer record. Great drumbs. Great gtr. Great voice. Great confusing artwork, thematic, genre. Well done!
 

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