Labels: Sentient Ruin
Review by: Alex Deller
Listening to the stuff collected here you can’t help but feel that Depressor went about their musical ‘career’ in an oddly ass-backward way: starting as a pro-sounding industrial metal unit before devolving into a smouldering slagheap of ugly metallic crust. Can’t say I’m complaining too much, and despite the difference in sound there’s still a throughline from this to the ‘Filth / Grace’ collection reviewed elsewhere … a gruntingly belligerent approach to their craft that refuses to be entirely standard. True, there’re nods to Doom and Bolt Thrower aplenty, but there’s still something going on that doesn’t quite add up and raises this material beyond the dime-a-dozen crust records cluttering most of our record collections. This compilation brings together the band’s first EP, a couple of demo cuts, splits with Agathocles and Unholy Grave and, perhaps of most interest to existing fans, three tracks from an abandoned split 7″ with Disclose, with the whole thing coming wrapped in a garish sleeve that looks like Death’s Head gone Voivod. Sterling work, Sentient Ruin!