Unearthly Trance - Electrocution
May 5 2008 at 10:38:13 AM
Kill. Crush. Destroy. What else is there to be said? I’m not going to write about thematic or occult references or single out individual songs that highlight this sickeningly proficient trio’s monumental new record. Tin-eared motherfuckers refuse to witness the progression, the deliberate structure the band has followed from recording to recording, laying a big ass brick, smoothing over mortar. Repeating the process. Every bit the same band that suffered from the esoteric recording practice of
Season of Séance, Season of Silence, Unearthly Trance have gone slim and trim, but still remarkably manage to imbue fleet-of-foot runs with totally monolithic heaviness.
The current trend of No Riffs, No Fun has no home here. There’s no avant “weirdness.” No pointless noodling. Just relentless focus, steadied ambition, and instrumental excellence. Drummer Darren Verni simply destroys. Bassist Jay Newman grumbles and thuds and explodes along, imbedded within Verni’s fills that drop like quarter ton safes from the observation deck of the Empire State. Ryan Lipynsky screams his fucking head off. He sings. He shouts. He even plays some solos, all southern-fried bog boogie that out hates Eyehategod.
The cover has a fucking hawk on it. It’s Horus, and he’s getting ready to take a big gray shit on the globe. There’s nothing not to like here, folks. Nothing.
[Stewart Voegtlin]