RIFF REWIND (23/05/2013): The Body - "Master, We Perish"

 

The Body’s Chip King and Lee Buford can emote pain like no other band, and their ability to move between the often strict confines of the metal world and the electronic music sphere is perhaps best illustrated on their 2016 full length “No One Deserves Happiness”, an album that eludes categorization.

Buford and King are outlaws of the metal world, striving to create music without a category. They embody many contrasts but always deliver punishing music in volume and scale.  Back in 2013 in an ongoing pilgrimage towards the apocalypse and perpetual hatred for humankind, THE BODY unleashed their “Master, We Perish” EP which showcased the THE BODY’s nihilistic audio terror with three blackened bursts of noise-drenched, low-fi doom.

With mangled-human cover art by Manifester, “Master, We Perish” was released as a 12” EP, CDEP, cassette and digital download on April 30^th 2013 via At A Loss Recordings.  Today we rewind the riffs to 4 years ago to the day and reacquaint ourselves with “Master, We Perish”.  So if you missed it the first time, be sure to remedy you error by checking out our review in full below. 

By: Chris Markwell

Album Type: EP

Date Released:30/4/2013

Label: At A Loss Recordings

This is a musical Frankenstein at work: stitching together lifeless vocal snippets and attaching them to raw guitar and drum tissue.  What is created is nothing short of terrifying: it should not be, but here it is in front of you.  ‘Master, We Perish’ is a fuse leading to dynamite, and it gets lit every time you listen to it.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you. 

“Master, We Perish” CD//DD//LP tracklisting:

1) The Ebb and Flow of Tides in a Sea Of Ash

2) The Blessed lay Down and Writhe in Agony

3) Worship

The Review:

Sometimes in this life we come across… anomalies.  Strange happenings we experience but cannot quite explain.  Portland, Oregon’s The Body is an example of such an occurrence: a two-piece metal act that sounds like an entire orchestra of angry, darkly creative musical alchemists.  Their latest offering is the EP ‘Master, We Perish’, and it’s three tracks of pure, churning hate.  Let’s let the autopsy begin. 

EP opener ‘The Ebb And Flow Of Tides In A Sea Of Ash’ begins with an air raid siren rolling up and letting loose, followed by a low, ripping guitar riff that feels like you’re being crushed with the sheer force of it.  It reminds me of Pulled Apart By Horses, with a generous tint of Hierophant mixed in.  As openers go, it’s a mighty beast, and Chip’s vocal cries are those of a madman, freshly escaped from the asylum. 

Track 2 opens in a much darker, low-key way: a guitar riff, doomy yet melancholy, mixes with some of Lee’s strange samples, creating a very unsettling, dark atmosphere to descend.  This is ‘The Blessed Lay Down And Writhe In Agony’, and it’s a really messed-up slice of doom.  This is a musical Frankenstein at work: stitching together lifeless vocal snippets and attaching them to raw guitar and drum tissue.  What is created is nothing short of terrifying: it should not be, but here it is in front of you: ‘IT’S ALIVE!  IT’S ALIVE!’ 

Lee’s very fine drumming work begins proceedings on final track ‘Worship’ and, clocking in at 9:39, it’s a real odyssey of a song, one that takes you down blind alleys and through streets with boarded-up houses and smashed windows.  The drums are unstoppable on this track and, frankly, the entire musical experience found here is nothing short of suffocating until it bursts open at around 6 minutes in and becomes this grinding, doom steamroller.  ‘Master, We Perish’ is a fuse leading to dynamite, and it gets lit every time you listen to it.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you. 

 Band info: Facebook



REVIEW: Witchapter - "Spellcaster" (EP)

By: Stephen Murray

Album Type: EP

Date Released: 04/07/2017

Label: Black Bow Records

“Spellcaster” CD//DD track listing:

1). Veiled Aggressor

2). Through Smoke and Sulfur

3). Everywhere I Look I See My Grave

The Review:

There is a Riff. It’s of the swampy kind that jacks directly into what remains functional of your richly barbecued, southern fried central nervous system. It appears about three minutes into the record’s opening song, ‘Veiled Aggressor,’ but you’d be doing it a disservice to skip ahead. The angry hardcore hammering of the first minutes leads into it perfectly, and is more than a vehicle to get you there; it’s a foot stomper of its own. Little wonder that this was the track used to signal Witchapter’s arrival.

The band’s debut release is the latest thing on Black Bow Records menu. So fresh, in fact, their first official outing was only a couple of weeks ago when they opened for Italy’s blackened warlocks Hierophant in a rather badly attended basement beneath a bar on the Margatecoast. Having played their three extant songs (choosing a set order that took ‘Veiled Aggressor’ from the top and dropped it in to close) which clock in a little over the 20 minute mark all told, I couldn’t help but wonder in what order these songs were written.

The second track (by EP reckoning, not live), ‘Through Smoke and Sulphur,’ continues to bring us more bile from the bayou. The opening bass shakes the eardrum like having a cheetah purr in your ear (to check that for yourself, hunt down Chris Watson’s field recordings), the guitar quiet but clear much further up the stave before it cuts loose with a riff and tone like Son House setting about a 40 foot pipe organ plumbed into a saw mill.

But it’s the third and final track that seems at odds. It fills a space roughly that of the other two combined and moves away from swamplands to somewhere more sombre. A wind ravaged moor, perhaps. Live, comparisons with Grief were made, but listening to the record that’s not quite right. As a rule of thumb I would say it leans more in that direction: sombre, pulsating melody that falls off the pentatonic path and deep growling. But unlike the other songs here it fails to distinguish itself amongst the merry rabble of competent doom now happening.

And this is where questions of writing order come in. Is the close of this EP indicative of what’s to come from Witchapter, or was it simply born of an early doomfluenced jam and it is really the hellish swamp metal that will define their future? I am looking forward to finding out.

“Spellcaster” is available here

Band info: bandcamp|| facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Hierophant - "Mass Grave"

By: Charlie Butler

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 04/11/2016

Label: Season of Mist

Hierophant can make a strong claim for angriest LP of 2016 with “Mass Grave”. The Italian wrecking crew have created a concentrated ball of molten rage and fury that will level everything its path.  This is a gloriously ugly racket that makes a suitable soundtrack for the current state of the world.

“Mass Grave” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1. Hymn of Perdition
2. Execution of Mankind
3. Forever Crucified
4. Mass Grave
5. Crematorium
6. In Decay
7. Sentenced to Death
8. Hierophant
9. Trauma
10. Eternal Void

The Review:

Hierophant can make a strong claim for angriest LP of 2016 with “Mass Grave”. The Italian wrecking crew have created a concentrated ball of molten rage and fury that will level everything its path

“Hymn of Perdition” establishes an air of grim anticipation with a cloud of ominous drone and dark samples. The mood is soon shattered by the 39 second piledriver that is “Execution of Mankind”. A fearsome hybrid of grindcore and death metal, drowning under a river of sludge, it’s a succinct distillation of Hierophant’ssound.

There is no let-up in intensity during the course of “Mass Grave” but the variations in attack make the onslaught all the more compelling. The title track sees the band easing up slightly on the throttle to allow elements of doomy grandeur to seep into the foreground. “Sentenced To Death” sees the tempo almost grind to a halt, a sickening chug that sees Hierophant’s sludgy tendencies given free reign.

Most punishing of all is “Eternal Void” which provides a skull-crushing finale to the album. Built around an insistent, sledgehammer riff that opens and closes the track, it is a breathless assault on the senses. There is a brief pause for breath midway through but this only serves to magnify the building-levelling power of the subsequent devastation. 

“Mass Grave” is a short but far from sweet statement from Hierophant. This is a gloriously ugly racket that makes a suitable soundtrack for the current state of the world.

“Mass Grave” is available here

Band info: facebook || bandcamp

FFO: The Secret, Celeste, All Pigs Must Die, Abaton