Labels: A Soundesign Recording
Review by: Alex Deller
This is pretty excellent. Whether Drose’s ‘A Frame | A Flame’ is two songs or one in two movements is hard to fathom, but it’s absolutely brilliant: a horrible, queasy, gloopy thing that sways morosely and is neither fish nor fowl. It’s not doom, not drone, not noise-rock, not really anything but it’s extremely powerful and genuinely disconcerting. I guess vague comparisons could be made to Godstopper (the woozy vibes and vague, unpleasant shimmers) or Torche if they were coming to after a failed suicide attempt, but even these suggestions aren’t quite on the money. This then glides into something built around unerring, quietly threatening spoken word vocals which somehow remind me of Swans or Bodychoke shorn of their punishing clamour. Finally, uneasy groans and rattling chains enter the fray and once more subtly shape things into something else entirely.
Murderedman are made of different stuff, but psychically linked and still stylistically difficult to pin down. ‘First Embrace’ clambers about on bandy legs, sounding like a more caustic, snarling version of the Birthday Party, Venom P. Stinger or a Gun Club who have gone very wrong indeed. ‘Corvette’ is more unhinged, taking these influences and burying them beneath sharp, trebly stabs and a sense of what it would be like if Scratch Acid and Racebannon started rolling around on the floor together. Their side of the cassette ends with the uneasy drone of ‘Diamona’, which brings things neatly full circle as the tape spools around once more to whatever it is Drose are doing on the flip.