Labels: Dry Cough – Halo Of Flies
Review by: Kunal Nandi
An unusual pairing, but a healthy one, united by friendship and a similar attitude towards getting shit done.
Cloud Rat you may already know as deliverers of blistering grinding hardcore that delves into a more emotional (I daresay, emo) sphere, with artistic leanings that makes them somewhat of a crustier version of Discordance Axis. Usually their songs are short, sharp and shattering, but on this split they’ve produced the 18 minute long “Holding The Picture”, a track that phases between passages and styles, keeping it gorgeously heavy but unusual at the same time, simultaneously chiming and discordant. The song is bookended by noise and feedback, the band breaking in abruptly before slowing things down, building and building to a painful crescendo and then slams into a satisfyingly heavy bit towards the end. In that respect, so far so predictable, but Cloud Rat’s riffs are just beautiful and nasty at the same time. They’ve got their own sound, and always have done from the start. Lyrically, I’m not sure where it’s coming from but I dig the oblique Lovecraftian influence broaching into everyday reality vibe.
Disrotted are positively primaeval in comparison. In fact that’s kind of the point. They regress beyond the pre-Cambrian and reduce music down to sporadic drum hits, guitar whacks and guttural grunts, all spaced out enough to maintain juuuuuust the right amount of cohesion. I burned out on this style a long time ago, with too many bands not diving deep enough, but Disrotted is pure pain, like earlier Corrupted stripped right down, although not without keeping a layer of subliminal noise and soundscaping in the mix. A bulldozing Stegosaurus of sound, ungainly and vicious.
Cloud Rat
Disrotted
Dry Cough (UK label)
Halo Of Flies (USA label)