Audio Assaults 420/666 vol. 6(66)

2020 to 201 Pandemic edition. Compiled by the THC Team from the final site.

Absit Omen
6 song advance promo CD
https://www.facebook.com/ABSIT-OMEN-102867015011663/

Absit Omen might ring a bell, or clank a stein of beer for some of you old school (and old, ha) metalheads who have been around the Edsa-era Club Dredd metal circuit; They were one of the usual names you’d see on those ‘Dredd tickets, in a packed lineup in the mid to late 90’s along with the bigger metal and hardcore/punk bands raging onstage then.

Absit Omen returns to wreak havoc and take names, etc. but not necessarily in that order. AO is kind of a new old band composed of OG Mass Hypnosia members, but their sound is still rooted in that heavy thrash base they already perfected in MH. The personnel are almost the same, with just a few variations: Karl is still on guitar and vocals, but Eman takes over the 2nd guitar this time. MH alumni Mike Seitz is on bass, and Glen returns to do some drumkit destruction in a slightly different style from the last time he played on the MH debut.

Unlike MH’s trademark catchy, breakneck, teetering to the edge over-speeding approach, AO prefers to use mid tempo riffing and steady double bass hammering over half time and midtempo speed combinations. There are ambient intros, countering harmonized lines, and spoken word style passages. There are even slower riff attacks in between and slightly melodic pensive lead solo runs instead of aggressive shred attacks to set them apart. There’s even a piano interlude that doesn’t sound out of place.

With drummer Glen recently beating Covid19, the emotional weight of these songs now make much more sense. Hard and deep reflection seemed to have been put into these tunes. It’s as if Mass Hypnosia turned inward and wrote a different album that’s more reflective of human mortality as a theme. Fighting an uphill battle for your life ain’t a joke, and Absit Omen came out of it with a certain wisdom and a darker mood on this recording, even if it was done much earlier.

Speed isn’t the be all end all rule among these guys, and AO knows how to mix things up a bit with these usual motifs. Same energy, but different approach, with more introspective moods as well. These elements work well in their 6 song CD debut release that should be out within late 2021. [R Ibanez]

Eyehategod
A History of Nomadic Behavior
Century Media

Eyehategod’s new one didn’t initially hit me when I first heard it. Maybe because the sound is much more slick and modern sounding than before on those three songs released as teasers. And maybe a few other things that made it different. Their online listening party afforded me the chance to finally listen to the whole album, and it suddenly clicked.

It’s probably just some slight unnoticeable-at-first changes. But EHG have been touring, playing, and sounding as a quartet for a while. They’re essentially a power trio on the music side now which lets them centralize the riffs and the surrounding interplay around it. This complements the band’s slightly altered overall sound. Jimmy now occupies both channels as a singular massive guitar tone that allows drummer Aaron Hill and bassist Gary Mader a bigger share of the space and lower frequencies, with more room to jam and play and breathe.

Meanwhile, Mike IX’s voice is so much clearer and not as distorted-red in the mix as before, just like his approach from the previous s/t album. Here he is even clearer, cleaner, more direct, and just as pissed off, even if he isn’t screaming and shouting in his old lacerating style. It’s a more refined punk metal sneer that perfectly complements these heavy and rocking tunes.

Yes, rocking – the blues, outlaw country, and southern rock riffs are more prevalent all throughout with Jimmy’s swamp-stamp of approval. Aaron and Gary are left to explore their jazz-punk-swing and groove interplays, while keeping the whole sound heavy and drowsy, or frantic, disjointed, and oddtime where applicable. It’s a weighty 12 song collection that aptly reflects EHG’s new old updated sound and where their collective headspace is at now.

Touring nonstop for the past few years until the whole world stopped in early 2020 allowed them to step back and look at how they’ve continued to grow as a band. This helped a lot with their focus on writing as a four piece. Those past years before 2020 hit also gave them new insights as hardened survivors of this bleak planet, while still being one of the pillars of doom that’s still hauling heaviness and for more than 30 years now. They will be there in The End when Earth finally slows down to their doom lurch crawl, and we will be there to toke and headnod in approval. [R Ibanez]

Lord Mortvm
Diabolical Omen of Hell
Regain Records
https://lordmortvm.bandcamp.com

In Norway, if you ever know where to find the Devil’s crossroads in the cold, grim expanse near the fjords, you will meet Lord Mortvm there. The Devil entrusted the keys of black metal and occult doom to the Lord, and this six track album is the ancient testament that embodies these two evil forms perfectly. Satanic movie samples weave sinister tales until The Lord kicks open the gates of hell for some slow, steady, HEAVY doom with slicing sinister vocals from unholy opened portals and black-tinged bluesy lead solos. Lord Mortvm’s scattered sigils manifest the demons on each track, peppering each tune with great, full-bodied black metal screeches atop huge hammering slabs of thick tar doom riffage, thicker than the blacked out potent resin caked in the bong of Satan in that Electric Wizard – Dopethrone album cover. HIGHly recommended for both black metal and doom enthusiasts, Regain’s pact with the Devil is now complete. [VIVIsectVI]

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THC Spotlight on:
Francesco Terrini / Coalminer / Recovery Center / WHITE WIDOW
https://francescoterrini.bandcamp.com/
https://francescoterrini.tumblr.com/

by: R Ibanez

I haven’t done a new THC spotlight review in a while so now is the perfect time. Having gotten a bunch of interconnected releases from the harsh noise wall / brutal noise / power electronics realm, this is the perfect way to feature Francesco Terrini and this entity’s various alter ego projects: Coalminer, Recovery Center, and White Widow, each even more punishing and mindbendingly noise-psyche wrecking in intensity.

Francesco Terrini “Hell” CDr
Harsh Noise London #40

This great looking DVD case holds within FT’s first ever release as part of Harsh Noise London’s exclusive series of solo noise artist releases. Terrini introduces himself with a mindwrecking wreck-urrence as he makes his debut in the UK which is somewhere else on the planet where he isn’t originally from.

Francesco Terrini shows why he tops many new releases with attitude and notoriety in this brain-stutter-inducing evil noise disturbance that creates a lot of anxiety and tension. Those eerie voices continue to attack your subconscious submerged in dark ambience and chugging static. It’s mental therapy through insidious sound collages and destruction that belies the colorful art and packaging. Yeah haha you’ll always have Paris (or the Philippines), but London (and the whole world) is for Francesco Terrini’s to break.

Francesco Terrini / Flesh Shuddering – Destroy Sound split tape
Washing Machine Tapes

The simple, no-frills cover art and its Destroy Sound titleage is perfect for this damaging split tape – It just reeks of industrial strength noise walls and power electronics surges. It automatically switches on total destroy mode and goes on for both sides as they attempt to outdo each other with added frequencies subtly changing the brutal noise landscapes. But for the most part Terrini x FxSx is a heavy dose of punishment from start to finish you can trip out to our loop-play for some mindnumbing good times.

Francesco Terrini / Armenia split tape
Mutual Aid Records

With glorious cassette art by Pain Chain, FT proceeds to open the festivities with headrush power electronics and white noisescapes laced with psychedelics. It is a total immersion and baptism in a harsh lysergic bath. Armenia steps into assess the initial wreckage, then proceeds to cauterize with methodological madness and fuse all burnt and blown elements slowly, surely, inflicting torture as it goes. The beautiful and colorful cover art usual of Mutual Aid Records releases gives the psyche-noise frequencies some fitting imagery as well.

Recover Center / Justice Yeldham split tape
Mutual Aid Records

Recovery Center is Francesco Terrini x Pow Martinez, one of Quezon City’s OG noise experimental entities. Together they create weird, mindfck noise disturbances with sample-like eerie noise (de)constructs and denatured dissonant guitar mutations served on a stream of crumbling black noise drones and pulses gurgling throughout. Justice Yeldham holds court on the other side, building up lurching noise marches that step into the temples of frequency generator noise washes and various power-stretching electroblip patterns, deconstructed instruments, and disguised alien codes drilling into your neurons and sub-neurons. These contrasting works are a perfect combination for this split release, adorned with Mutual Aid’s standout colorful collage art.

Kazuya Ishigami / Recovery Center split tape
Haunted Amplifier 

Japanese noise disturbance Kazuya Ishigami wreaks sound destruction pieces with Recovery Center’s experimental ear-rot maneuvers. KI’s side weaves in and out of consciousness with minimalist noise washes and collages, veering from right to left hemispheres like soundwaves teleporting from one side of your brain mush, on to the other. Then, RC takes over and flourishes the next side with eerie noise electronics marred by industrial noise experimentation. This split tape is total atmosphere with different brain activity translated into sounds that slowly deconstruct normal brain wave coordination. Pow’s trademark sick art adorns its sleeve art for a very appropriate visual front.

Coalminer/Jugenwerkhof split tape
Karma Detonation

Coalminer’s out there altered state power electronics with disturbed howl-screams complements Jugenwerkhof’s hardened, forceful distorto soundwave assaults and mass churning white noise formations. Since the cassette shell has been blacked out in color completely, you need to play this all the way through from A to B so it always starts in the right sequence. Or don’t – it serves its purpose well when you play it on an auto-reverse deck set on loop. It’s ear and mind disintegration, two ways. It is also a good way to wash your brainwaves with noise acid stains with Berlin, Germany and Philippines’ insane new imports.

MO*TE / White Widow split CDr
Bizarre Audio Arts

Japan & Philippines in a deathcage match but with heavy power electronics/noise frequencies and soundwaves as the weapons. And not between them, but between your ears and your brain vs. them, locked in with the 2 notorious outfits present here digging through your skull then wiping it out: the 90s harsh noise merchant MO*TE unleash barrages of brutal soundscapes to disintegrate matter into even grotesque formations.

Not to be outdone, White Widow churns out layered fast-oscillating torrential psyche noise screeches, much similar to the strange voices and noises from the netherworld when you’re falling asleep. They devolve in the near end and become less denser, constantly picking at your brain and also serving as its soundtrack for the long descent into total madness – one track, more than 40+ minutes of insanity.

White Widow
Transmigration CD
Cruel Symphonies

White Widow is evil harsh noise/power electronics using illegal weaponry made with electronic collage bludgeons and out-there ambience backing from the subconscious netherworld. If you’re into extended noise collage jams WW are perfect for those mindwarp bliss altered states. It stretches your mind into complete dementia, at least temporarily. Layers upon layers of discomforting and disembodied mutated howls and whacked electronic signals taunt your neurons even further into the abyss.

And when you just imagine it with some kind of organic chemical assistance you too can be there right in the thick of it. Or just simply load this CD and immerse/lose yourself, or both. Either way, the stuff is just too potent to take that it can only be released outside the country where the real connoisseurs actively search for this. Take one massive cloud toke and begin your deconstruction process.

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Paganfire
Wreaking Fear and Death
Anger of Metal Records

We started this batch of reviews with Filipino thrash, so we end it with Filipino thrash. “Kamatayan sa huwad na metal” – Paganfire, the infamous raging diehard assault squad threatens to maim, torture, and kill the false and posers with this full length import vinyl LP. They won’t give an F if you’ve been offended by their tirades, but they can pretty much back that up in terms of killer thrash savagery and total metal/punk attitude.

Thrash that’s super precise and played too proper a lot of times just balances out the equation too much and loses potential added firepower; This is where Paganfire excels by letting welcome aggression and gnarly punk attitude balance out the need for pretty sounding thrash. The raw recording adds to their overall sound and intensity – Just pure frenetic pissed off thrash. Live, Vro’s acidic vocals utter the inevitable “Putangina Niyo” FOAD sentiments – I got shouted at one time when I was up front at one of their shows – probably the best live tagalog curse I’ve heard heheh.

Useless shit like harmonies, ultra precision, and clean flawless productions are thrown out the window in favor of true killer metal – just f’n deal with it. Paganfire like to thrash around, divebomb and shred like hell, and continue to piss people off, occasionally grabbing your beer and then smacking you upside the head just for the F of it.

F’n no remorse, offensive, full-on real thrash attitude with their thumbs all the way down. Paganfire do it with a smirk and not with a smile – if you came here for a party thrash atmosphere, then you’re in for some skull bashing with a thick mug blunt force trauma and a total kill from those big, sharp pointy BC Rich guitars and headstocks. [Yeah it came out f’n years ago. Yes consider this a late review but better late than never. [R Ibanez]