Older release here, but not one I’ve seen a great deal of chat about either upon its initial release or when Bedouin reissued it on vinyl, so what the heck. All I’d heard previously was the band’s split with Klonns, which was enough to whet my appetite if not to prepare me for what was in store here. While that release smashed together sludge, noise and hardcore, ‘Pain, Ritual & Life’ extends its reach into further-flung realms, drawing influence from jazz, electronica and industrial as it weaves its madcap way. It’s telling that the sanest elements here are the most ‘traditionally’ extreme: the moments where incoherent grind meets warped sludge and elongated drone, as though records by Boris, Excruciating Terror and Su19b are playing simultaneously. If these ugly lumps serve as the album’s disjointed spine, oddball experimentation serves as its connective tissue. Scuttling beats, electronic pulses and blubbering sax intervene throughout, at times sidelining the extremity while at others working in perfect tandem with it. Capable of sounding like Napalm Death, God or Ministry depending on their whim, quite what Granule are doing or where they’re headed is anyone’s guess. This unpredictability, though, doesn’t detract from the experience one jot – it heightens it, in fact, and makes for a strangely cohesive experience that suggests a wide-open future for this very exciting band.
