Labels: the Perfect Hoax
Review by: Kjetil Holstad
Two guys who used to be in Like Rats From A Sinking Ship makes up this noise duo from Norway. Have to admit that I was never a fan of lrfass neither on record or live so I did not have high hopes for this when I first put this on. Press-description was short but managed to include “protest songs” and this combined with the EP title and track titles like ‘Less is Roger Moore’ and ‘I Have a Hobbit to Support’ did not lift my spirit neither. Have no lyrics so we will just have to take their word that these are indeed protest songs.
Musically this is far better than lrfass. They got rid of the super annoying synth elements and have stripped their music down bridging noise, metal and more punk elements together with a thick and heavy sound that suits them good. At times they are quite melodic (‘Are we werewolves yet?’) and other times they are playing a whole lot faster bordering towards straight up hardcore (‘I have a hobbit to support’). They are at their best when they slow down and play as ugly as they can (‘A matter of life and death metal’). Over the course of the eight songs though, they are losing my attention as this gets to generic. Norway has been spoiled with bands in this genre lately with bands like Noxagt and Arabrot and although Barren Womb do a decent attempt this just shows they have a long way to go if they aim to step up to the throne.