Audio Assaults 420/666, Vol. 999

Scarecrow – Scarecrow III
RITUAL SOUND

Russia’s Scarecrow has some new heavy and intriguing tripped out tracks on this latest release. Their most ambitious musical effort to date, it was created and inspired by travels and recent tours. Thus did a long stretch started what would lead to musical collaborations with tour city native musicians and mind-expanding, heavy songwriting.

You can tell that these adventures were part of the sonic design of this new album. Scarecrow takes you on further journeys that commemorate an intense year, along with further sonic explorations and prog/psyche leanings with desert/stoner/doom rock heaviness.

The results are inspired studio jam experiments and concept-album-style tunes. The heaviness combines with the atmospheric keys and exotic sound combinations. It also uses clean axe or nylon acoustic vs. heavy riff dynamics to great effect.

Scarecrow also know how to use tension and drama as the songs build up using natural heaviness and frantic shredding. They don’t lose sight of the power of the doomed riff, while they fuse together classical and middle eastern scales, instrument jams, and percussion. Songs like “The Hymn” and “Eastern Nightmare” prove their weight, with a balanced touch of heavy songwriting and righteous jams.

The vocals push it to the limit, with upper register and slightly operatic metal vocals soaring over beefed up riffs and mind-fusion solos, and clean but hypnotic arrangements. These elements help explore the inner worlds Scarecrow have tapped through these focused whirling dervish jams.

These sonic pairings result in hasheeshian mystical vibes and cinematic epics. The album provides grandiose mysterious visions of Jinn rituals in the desert. This capsule of creative jamfusions also resulted in a 16-minute movie and an accompanying score.

Their symphonic approach is also very cinematic and powerful, creating their own killer heavy rock vision. Scarecrow’s mix of progressive and world music metal and heavy modern doom rock works and sounds excellent.

https://scarecrow-official.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Scarecrow.RockBand

SBB – Turbulence
Creston Club

Enter the world of cutup power electronics and harsh noise from SBB of Oita, Japan. His string of tours in Asia have provided loud and super amplified opportunities for controlled and uncontrolled chaos live. Crowds have both been bombarded with various frequencies and energetic live noise fusion mastery.

This almost 80 minute disc is a punishing yet fun stream of consciousness display of technical power electronics noise attacks. It captures the frenetic energy of a live SBB set, albeit over an hour of continuous noise jam madness.

SBB is one of Japanoise entities that bridges its tradition with the new school of destructive, detailed noise art. Armed with an assortment of obscure pedals and altered soundwave forms digitally mutated, then churned out, arranged, and (dis)organized in controlled chaos form, it produces extreme sound art/power electronics cacophony sounds with varying sonic textures that are a joy to get disintegrated to.

To date, SBB has produced albums and EPs of different sonic designs. It’s safe to say you can start with this one and backtrack to his other releases, including a dark ambient one, a greatest hits of sorts, and a few others with the same busy power electronics assaults.

https://www.instagram.com/sekiwositemo1_/
https://www.instagram.com/crestonclub2022/

Slaughter Table – Public Execution Fund
Independent release

The brutal harsh noise and power electronics barrage of Slaughter Table from Malaysia has recently devastated different crowds in Asia. From Taiwan and Indonesia, to Japan and his motherland, these live assaults are a more brutal form of these five intense tracks.

Live, Slaughtertable’s intent to overpower you with a steady stream of industrial-strength power electronics provides enjoyable noise torture assaults. From cut up violence to disintegrating noise bombs and jagged edge frequencies, it destroys and leaves smoldering industrial ash sonic ruins.

Ranging from piercing power electronics to heavy, dense death industrial and harsh noise cacophonies marred by black and white TV static-infected monologue Manson samples, the heavy-handed and coarse textured approach grates and disintegrates listeners into submission. This tour-only exclusive release is the perfect souvenir for those who were foolish enough to stand in the way of the oncoming industrial battle tank battering ram attacks live. Watch out.

https://slaughtertable.bandcamp.com/

BA’AH – S/T
Independent Release

Ba’ah’s sound drowns and hypnotizes you at the same time and turns your brains into thick frozen slabs of disarrayed matter by the time the whole disc closes to an end. One of Malaysia’s finest premium drone/noise imports arrives at the hall of drone/experimental noise/extreme sound art with a very heavy, expansive, and multi-layered noise bath that envelopes the listener.

Ba’ah’s approach is similar to his band’s heavy doom approach as a guitarist in Runtuh, but that is just his lower frequencies. Here, he represents that subfrequency along with other layers of punishing drone, noise, and doom translated into the heavy experimental drone sound art all his own. It expands as pure, unadulterated drone soundwaves, comprised of different modular synth and power electronics mixed methodically in a heavy sonic cauldron.

The sub-hell world created here comprises of layers of deep dive epic drones and harsh death industrial atmospheres. It builds slowly and surely into heavy low and lower frequency synth and noise waves of various frequencies that build continuously and totally destroy in a methodical way that carry and awash you in deep drone psychosis. BA’AH unleash some of the heaviest multiple-frequency, dense-layered doom drone noise orchestrations for meditative, slow burn mind trips.

https://www.instagram.com/baah.noise/

Slaughter Table / BA’AH split

Ba’ah & Slaughter Table complement each other with well-combined frequencies; The former’s expansive drone doom noise capabilities and the latter’s harsh noise and industrial power electronics assaults are a match made in noise madness heaven.

This is a killer split that provides you with a major dose for each noise entity on this split tape. And for those who don’t know, both entities jam in band form in another powerful manifestation, Body Rag, Malaysia’s heavy, violent brutal hardcore death industrial merchants.

Distilling and producing two of its distinct elements into individual soundforms and adding their own styles, Ba’ah and ST in their pure individual formations work well both as singular noise entities, and as another duo configuration (experienced live recently) that also matches well; The former’s heavy and dense slow-burn foundation meets the latter’s violent, also multi-frequency industrial cutup and noise textures that perfectly merge into one.

This split tape breaks down these separate layer components in order for noise listeners to experience each as their individual self. It makes for a satisfying, engaging split that’s well-made and also complements each other.

https://slaughtertable.bandcamp.com/album/slaughter-table-baah-split

Fleshcarver
Devourer Of The Negative Ecstasy
Cipher Productions

The black metal/death industrial/dark ambient entity Fleshcarver returns with a new album this time under Australia’s Cipher Productions. This new body of work offers more of the blackened lysergic doses of negative dark ambient-drowned black metal/power electronics fusion that FC has established from his previous releases, reviewed elsewhere in this site.

It’s the stranger and more extreme mutation of Jaw Surgery, in a much different altered state of mind and anchored in the lower, lower grotesque dimensions. These layers of blackened power electronics and dark ambient industrial psychosis all meld together with hissing and totally wrecked vocal attacks.

You shall pay the price for daring to enter these skewed and demented outer-frequency dimensions yet find soothing, seething comfort in this ultra-distorted version of alternate hell. This limited edition cassette release comes adorned with sick art by Paul van Trigt.

Jaw Surgery
Live In Taiwan 2023
Karma Detonation Tapes

Meanwhile, Jaw Surgery’s main earthly form appears in a limited edition live release from elite Taiwan label, Karma Detonation Tapes. Live in Taiwan 2023 comprises of three select incinerating sets of jarring harsh noise and power electronics destruction performed live during their noise detonation campaign of that fateful year when JS firmly established their live sound and tested it on the unsuspecting citizens of Taiwan, who absorbed the heavy and pulsating streams of well-composed and improvisation-heavy material in the devastating live setting, which is the perfect way to experience the brutal discordance.

Jaw Surgery, among the other noise/experimental artists presented on this issue and previous issues are some of the top Asian extreme sound arts that you have to pay attention to. It may be a sign of the coming doom or destruction of the Asian continents, or not. But make no mistake about it, they are pushing the extreme noise arts to forward and beyond.

Body Rag
Idiocracy Nation

Malaysia’s totally punishing Body Rag offers a killer combination of brutal hardcore fused with oldschool death and pissed off gargantuan grooves with generous doses of power electronics and harsh noise layers. Having witnessed their recent Taiwan tour, the already unmerciful beating you will receive in this limited edition cassette (mixed none other than Brad Boatright at Audiosiege, USA) is much heavier and more brutal in the live setting.

Idiocracy Nation is from 2022 and I forgot to get the most recent newer albums. Nevertheless, it’s one of the best brutal metal releases last year and will leave you wanting more of their fine-tuned yet primal brutal attacks. Grab the “Human Oversight” single and latest Asian tour cassette promo of “Vision Of Truth” comprised of new tunes for more incendiary killer tracks, if you dare. For those who don’t know, this band also features the noise and power electronics entities from Slaughtertable and BA’AH (check out their reviews elsewhere on this issue). Simply fn killer.

https://bodyrag.bandcamp.com/

{collected 2024 and 2025 reviews by: VIVIsectVI, R Ibanez, G Vazquez, dronebot}