Labels: De Graanrepubliek – Halo Of Flies
Review by: Alex Deller
Drainland again: like the gaping jaws of hell snapping inches from your face. Herein they play one five-minute song that sounds like it’s drawing from the same dank, bitter place Iron Lung do when they slow things down whilst mixing things up with faster blasts, gloomy arpeggios and tortured female vocals. Just as you think you’re gonna be allowed to sink blissfully into a morass of roiling noise, in comes a combination of hammerblow drum patterns and electronic whirring, and by the time the lonely life support beeps fade out you’ll doubtless be wishing wholeheartedly for the quiet oblivion of the hospital morgue.
Similarly un-chipper are Enabler, a band I’ve been meaning to check out for a while. They spew out two doses of negative-headspace viciousness that revels in death metal lore and hardcore immediacy. ‘Drop Out’, the shorter of the two tracks here, is actually my favourite, mainly for the way it suddenly ditches the mania, lets the bass plod about for a bit and lunges into a mid-placed trudge over which a dissonant guitar pisses and moans. Awesome. More of both, please!