However my musical masochism grew in the last decade, I am still not a big fan of chaotic, unstructured noise terrorism, especially not when a lot of high frequencies are used. As far as I knew, Sufcliffe Jugend is one of these projects.
Sutcliffe Jugend has been around since 1982. It is one of the early projects that started to make a very extreme form of the upcoming industrial music. Of course, with them having been active for so many years and me having been involved in uncommon music also for quite a few years, I had run into this British project a couple of times. Still, inspite of a growing likeness of noise and even a bit of power electronics, Sutcliffe Jugend remained one of these projects that were a bridge to far for my taste. I did see them at the Wave Gotik Treffen a few years ago though. I do not remember much of the show…
Recently I accidentally heard a few tracks that I actually like (or did I hear the same track a few times?). They are probably part of some playlist or came by when I listened to a ‘similar artist radio’ or something. These tracks show that Sutcliffe Jugend also has tracks which are more of the ‘wall-of-sound’ type noise (that I do like sometimes) with completely insane vocals with normal and high-pitched screaming. Guessing that this could be a new direction, I decided to try the latest album of Cold Spring (but now I see that two other albums are already listed after it on Discogs!)
“Offal” opens with a wall-of-sound type track only not with the typical screamed vocals, but for the rest a track track that I expected from this project, just perhaps a little less extreme. The track is not great, but certainly not bad.
Then we go to “Howl” which turns out to be an impressive and truely brilliant track! The vocals are very atypical. They are a bit TV-preacher like, but also with the more typical screams. There is a slow, industrial rhythm and an increasing wall of sound. Oh how do I like noise with vocals sometimes! This is the type of noise that gets the hair on my arms straight up.
Another great track is “Slice”. A track with a faster rhythm and a bit of ‘orchestral squak’ or how should I describe the sound? After a while the vocals set in. This tracks is good and dirty.
The last track has again a faster rhythm. It start with a monotous kind of talking, but after a while they are again more like the American TV-preacher who after a while starts to swear and scream. The music is simple but effective, rhythmical, noisy and a little bit odd and also this track is great.
Four, long tracks. Two of which are great, one is very good and another is just good. Perhaps I have to dive into the fairly large discography of Sutcliffe Jugend afterall.
Cold Spring Industries, Sutcliffe Jugend
