$7 //
Edition of 100 //
https://nullzone.bandcamp.com/album/live-at //
An ambient whirr and drumming kick things off on this cassette. This whirr has a certain drone to it while the drumming is frantic behind it. Notes come through with the percussion now and you know it's serious when you can hear the drumsticks. It feels like a guitar is being plucked but it's acoustic and so it might be some other instrument which is like an acoustic guitar but smaller, though I'm not sure whether or not there is such an instrument so let's just say it's a guitar until we learn otherwise.
Notes come through in a back and forth way now which feel like a distress signal. Screeches and string scrapes build up louder and cymbal crashes reign down in utter destruction. I had a dream like this once and it was the end of the world. Things didn't catch fire or explode they just sort of vanished as if we were all cartoons being erased by some invisible eraser. It grows louder now, banging heavy. Softer, slides and more sounds that could be bird calls but I know to be guitars.
As drums crash now it feels as if the guitar strings are going to break. The guitar notes go back and forth: 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2 and it sounds like a church bell ringing. Some sharpness as well, as this gets minimal, fading and seeming as if it is all over until louder notes of chaos spring into action. This has elements of Primus but in a very broad sense. The percussion begins to once again telegraph the movements, as if a silent movie were being broadcast as a radio show.
I want to call this next part acoustic skramz but I feel like someone who is an actual band that plays skramz has tried to do an acoustic set before and it just doesn't sound the same. The quiet turns to loud as the breaking, the destruction, it is all coming out now as if a fighter is in the last round with nothing left to lose and is just giving it their all. The guitar notes then switch to something more transcendent, a little trippy as everything calms down a bit. It is peaceful now, reflexive. Drum rolls and cymbals are left to their own devices now and they take us to the end of Side A.
On the flip side we start with sharp guitar notes which make me think of "In Utero" era Nirvana. They come rambling through now and the drums accompany them in a manner which just has them feeling that much stronger, that much more powerful. It really begins driving now. The notes are somehow looped but it's just this rhythm which becomes hypnotic at its core. As the strums grow harder so do the cymbal crashing and overall madness of the drumming. Guitars sound like morse code now and then they become much heavier, eletric and bass-filled. We're into a sound which could be described as sludge now.
It all comes down to some lone guitar notes. Things breaking, yet quietly. A tapping and cymbal slides. This could be the sound of traffic now as it all comes out at once, wild. There is a quiet pacing to it though. We're slowly moving through this bumpy road, like riding a horse on a trail in the old west. Bangs and clanks here and there. Metal on metal. Guitar string torture to get just the right sound out of it. Muted drumrolls are the quietest this cassette has been so far.
Some sharpness begins to slowly squeak back into the scene. It's beginning to feel as if there is yelling behind this- screaming- and the music is chugging along as if it is hardcore or metal. It might just be an audio illusion but with headphones on you can really hear it coming through back there, some sort of thrash-core. Back into the breaking down and I feel like I want MANAS to come play in my house and use whatever can be found to create their sound (I have a lot of percussion based instruments for kids)
Back and forth beeping builds now. The drummer is on a roll. It feels like an emergency. The drumming gets more methodic, like voodoo, as the guitar belts out notes and this has all the makings of a song which I feel could detour evil spirits from visiting your doorstep. It rings, it scrambles. School is out. The stock market has closed forever. This is the doom you were warned about by your grandparents. This is why old curses should not be lifted.
No comments:
Post a Comment