I've been waiting a long time to review this split,
which actually came out sometime last year. The first act is a
black/death/grind/noise/industrial act called Konflict from Sri Lanka. We know
there are three members in the act, but have no idea as to who does what, or
what bands they've been in prior to the act – nothing. Yet when you hear a band
like this that mixes industrialism with fiery black metal riffs, thick drum
abrasions and a sort of gurgling that sounds like they've captured a beast from
the Necronomicon and gave it the fucking microphone (seriously, this thing
sounds inhuman as hell, what are they up to in Sri Lanka?) you start to get a
bit curious. The sound is obviously raw, but it seems to fit the absolutely
heinous nature of the material, which is by far unlike anything I've ever
heard. I'm telling you folks, if you put the fucking Cloverfield monster on the
vocals, this is what it would sound like. This is beyond the normal gurgle...
this is something, I just can't even fucking describe. Summon a literal demon
from the abyss, give him a microphone and this is what you get. This is the
kind of sound that would preachers shit their pants (Not sure if that includes
Jesse Custer though) and convince religious congregations that the devil is
real. The interesting thing about these demonic pieces is that they all have
relatively intelligent titles. For instance, we've got “To Erase The Eelam
Parasite” , “Decoding The Aryan Survival Cipher”, “Epignetic Hate Transmission”
and others. Sometimes throughout the twenty-four minute EP we'll even get
utterances that sound like they're on two different dimensional planes. What in
the hell is going on over there? Sometimes we're even barreled over with
torrents of noise. Huge mounds of atmospheric noise such as the album's opener
“Aryan Cytoarchitecture and The Handle Of A Weapon Or Tool” or the
aforementioned “Decoding The Aryan Survival Cipher.” I'm not sure if these guys
play live, but they're definitely not the kind of act you hear everyday. I'm
rather quite impressed and I hope that we'll get to hear more from this awesome
trio in the future. Maybe somewhere deep within this thick monstrosity lies the
future of grind itself. That remains to be seen.
The next act we have on the split is Reek Of The Unzen Gas Fumes, which
is a blackened grindcore act of complete insanity whose lyrics seem to be based
on anti-Buddhism, sadism and radical Japanese nationalism according to Metal
Archives. That third one's a real whammy, especially if you're a US citizen
because of rather obvious reasons. From what I've researched, some of these
right-wing (yes, they have right and left winged political movements in Japan as
well) movements are tied directly to the yakuza, which doesn't surprise me. In
any case, the approach the listener is getting here is one of force, fire and
absolute insanity. It's not always as crazy as “Dehumanizing Cesspool For
Future of Humanity” as “Doku” displays with it's weirdness and much slower
tempo, but for the most part these guys feature an extremely raspy vocalist
that melds with static in a way that he sounds like an angered television set.
We do know that INHKR is behind the guitar, bass and drum programming and that
9300FGB is the vocalist, but no one knows what Warcrime Rapist does. At any
rate, this an entirely interesting grindcore act with enough depth and
originality to stand out among their peers. I realize that while I've mentioned
it already, I need to reiterate that these guys are completely fucking insane
as far as the performance is concerned and the complete polar opposite of what
we're seeing portrayed as Japanese heavy music as far as the media is
concerned.
This is the extremely heavy underground shit that you were looking for
and you'll be extremely happy to have one of only 66 copies in print of this
cassette only release. You'd also be extremely lucky. I'm going to give this
the highest possible score I can give as I've heard nothing quite like it in
the grindcore scene, but it was released quite a while ago and I can't
spotlight it as I normally would have. Just take it as a sign that you need to
find a way to get a hold of this split somehow. Some of the material from both
of these bands is surprisingly available on Bandcamp, but this split cassette
is limited and not even I have a copy of it, just a digital promo with a low bit-rate quality. Even so, that's enough for me to prove to you that these bands
are fucking phenomenal in the grind scene and you've really got to hear them
both for yourself. I tend to like Konflict more, but wouldn't turn down either
act. The Grim Tower highly recommends this split EP, so definitely give it a
listen. You'll find a way.
(18 Tracks, 46:00)
10/10
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