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death industrial

Trepaneringsritualen – The Totality Of Death (2024)

The first time I seriously listened to TxRxP was late 2013 when two cds were released on two different labels, with the same title, but with different material. The title was “The Totality Of Death“. The two cds contained existing material.

TxRxP had used the title before, for a 2011 tape release, but also after, as in 2013 another tape with this title appeared. In 2015 a 3lp release bared the same title and now two cds are made available by Cold Spring. The red cd is the “Alpha” and the green one the “Omega” part of this “Totality Of Death”, so is this really the “totality” this time?

Again the cds contain old material, mostly from compilations. Some tracks had not yet been released before or only in digital form. After two lively tracks follows the dark ambient sound of the project. Towards the end there are again some more industrial sounds.
Also the second cd goes from dark ambient to industrial, but mostly ambient. There is not really the ‘typical’ TxRxP sound it seems. There are earlier versions of a few tracks that later appeared on “Kainskult“.

There are some great tracks on the cds and some of the dark ambient tracks are descent as well.

You can get the cds from Cold Spring and when you are quick, red and green shirts.

Links: Trepaneringsritualen, Cold Spring

Abscheu – Creed (2023)

Contrary to some other noise projects, Abscheu has only released a handfull of albums since 2016. After some releases on Unrest, the project found its way to Tesco.

As on previous releases, “Creed” contains dark industrial noise with very extreme vocals. Some tracks are harsher than others. I again prefer the death industrial type tracks over the more ‘ambient’ and chaotic noise ones and especially the tracks that contain vocals.

Abscheu sound somewhat ‘typical’ for an Unrest project, but when it is good, that does not really matter. “Creed” is another good noise album.

Links: Tesco

Bøltorn – Dødsverk (2022)

The over-active Hendrik Nordvargr Björkk has got a new project together with two other people. Even though two of their releases have been made available by Cloister Recordings (and two other by Old Europa Café), I have missed the project until this new release on Tesco.

By the way, there is one self-released EP in 2021 and all other six releases are from 2022!

What I have heard of the project so far is mostly somewhat typical, but excellent Scandinavian death industrial. On “Dødsverk” the sound is much more noisy. The industrial rumbling rhythms of other releases have made way for high frequency mayhem. I must say, that of all releases that I have listened to so far, I prefer all over this new one…

Concluding that the trio wants to explore different sounds and that most of their outputs are pretty good, we have another project to keep an eye on (and try to keep up with!).

Links: Bøltorn, Tesco

Operation Cleansweep – Release Now! The Call To Die (2021)

So “Release Now!” became a trilogy with old Cleansweep material and “The Call To Die” closes the series. Like the previous, it was released by Tesco.

You get material created between 1995 and 2004. Of the eight tracks I only knew one, “The Call To Die” which was on the live in Munich album from 2003. All other tracks are not even listed on Discogs, so they have probably never been available before and represent the “unreleased material of lost tapes and material” of Tesco’s ‘blurb’.

Style wise there are no surprises. Noise with slow rhythms, low frequency walls of noise and here and there death industrial. The material is good to amazing (how comes that a tracks such as “Algomania II” has never been released before?).

Most Cleansweep releases were from before I liked them, so it would be nice if other material will be made available again too. New material would be a good idea too!

Links: Operation Cleansweep, Tesco

Brighter Death Now – All Too Bad – Bad To All (2021)

The latest BDN comes through Tesco. It looks like this is the first cooperation between both industrial dinosaurs.

“All Too Bad” starts with a noisy piece of music, not the “death industrial” style of Karmaniks project. This already returns in the second track, which has a throbbing rhythm and far away distorted vocals.

Karmanik seems to have wanted to lay more stress on the noisy side of the project this time, as the following tracks are much more in a noise direction than death industrial. Usually there is some sort of industrial rhythm in the background though.

“All Too Bad” actually is not all that bad. Perhaps a bit short, but apparently I can stand the noise side of BDN better today than I used to. Perhaps I should start listening to older material.

Links: Brighter Death Now, Tesco

Dayofwrath – And The World Will Perish In Flames (2021)

My introduction to Dayofwrath was the Beläten compilation “En Sommar Av Plaga” (2020). The contribution sounds almost exactly like Trepaneringsritualen, but it is good.

Here we have the debut on Cloister. A tape limited to 100 copies or just the digital Bandcamp release.

“And The World” also reminds of TxRxP, but perhaps even more so to his cooperations with Nordvargr. Slightly more pomp than TxRxP. Also the sound is not as ‘rumbling’ as TxRxP.

Death industrial, more rhythmic elements, drumming, TxRxP-like vocals and a chainsaw-type sound that makes a bit of melody (guitar I guess). Maybe not entirely original in sound, but very well executed.

I am curious what the future will bring for this project.

Link: Cloister Recordings

Lille Roger – Undead 1984-1987 (2021)

In 1995 I was in contact with Mortiis and so I also came in contact with Cold Meat Industry. I bought quite some of their back catalogue, but it was mostly the more tranquil material that I was interested in in the beginning. It took a while before I learned to appreciate things like Mental Destruction and MZ.412 and even longer before I started to like Brighter Death Now.

Lille Roger I of course knew by name. It was the pre-BDN project of the main man behind CMI, Roger Karmanik. The original “Undead” 7″ has been released in 1987 so it was long sold out. Also it was the final release of Lille Roger (and the start of CMI). The old project nevermore appeared on compilations, so I never really got to know Lille Roger.

Apparently there has been more releases before “Undead”. It is not entirely clear to me what the story is about his box set. Discogs has it listed as a 2018 CMI release, but only recently it seems to have been made available by Tesco. Is that a rerelease or did the CMI version never come about? Or is this a cooperation?

In any case, you can get this 64 track compilation as a Bandcamp release, a 7 lp box or a 5 cd box. It is quite pricey, but it seems to look good. I got myself the cd set, but waiting for the physical version, I can already listen to all the tracks on Bandcamp.

“Lille Roger” made what we would call death industrial nowadays I guess, but for some tracks ther term angstpop may fit the bill as well. Industrial noise with slow rhythms, samples and vocals. The vocals are somewhat ‘atypical’ as they are usually not heavily distorted and often even sung. The tracks are not as dark as BDN can get, but the sound does often already remind of BDN. Here and there the sound becomes a bit lighter.

Some tracks are somewhat simple, but many tracks are actually quite enjoyable. It is not overly extreme industrial music, so it is relatively easy to listen to. Not bad at all!

Link: Tesco

Westendhall – Reluctant Resistance (2020)

This is not the first release of Westendhall, but the project is new to me. It appears to be a project of the same man who makes music under the monicker Code Neda.

Code Neda makes mostly ‘noisescapes’. Initially I thought the same style filled “Reluctant Resistance”, but it soon becomes clear that Westendhall leans more to the death industrial type of noise with highly distorted vocals.

The music is quite minimalist, perhaps even a bit ‘ambient’, but with low frequencies and heavy blasts, so the result is more ‘death industrial’. The sound reminds a bit of Gnawed. Though not as good as the American project, “Reluctant Resistance” is a descent noise release, especially for those who -like me- like the darker types of noise.

Links: Westendhall, Cloister Recordings

Murderous Vision – Abscission (2020)

How me and this project go back, I described four years ago in my review of the “Hidden Histories” tape.

The activity of this project goes back well into the previous millennium. As a matter of fact, the initial release of “Abscission” marked 25 years! First released on tape, now three tracks are added and the same label has made the release available on cd.

As on most releases of the project, the sound is varied. the album opens with dark ambient, continues with slightly ritualistic dark ambient with some rhythm and chanting bringing a faint reminiscence of early Coph Nia. The next two tracks are more dark soundscapes and with “Autumn Black” we slowly work towards more of a ‘noisescape’. This erupts into a death industrial track called “Open The Night Sky” with the extreme vocals that you hear in Murderous Vision tracks every once in a while. A quieter track closes the 50 minute album.

The dark ambient tracks are pretty dark. Not the kind of music that I listen to a lot, but not bad at all. I prefer the rougher side of this project so I am treated with one track.

An album for people who like the dark rumbling border between ambient, industrial and noise.

Links: Murderous Vision, Chthonic Streams

The Vomit Arsonist – That Which Has Been Forgotten (2019)

It is weird how the memory works. I have known TVM for a long time, but in my head they make the kind of noise that I do not like, chaotic, many high frequencies, etc. Then I was combing through Spotify to make a playlist of “vocal noise” the name passed by and I thought to take a quick listen just to make sure if I was right about not liking this project.

Spotify has this album released in 2020, Discogs says 2019 and I believe the latter. The Spotify listing is a reason for this review as I do not usually review older releases that I discover.

That said, putting on the album, the sound is exactly what I was looking for for my playlist. Heavy, dark industrial noise with extreme vocals. Damn this stuff is dark! Slow, pounding rhythms, typical noisy metal clanging and very heavy vocals. The music is not as harsh as it can get. Some tracks are almost dark ambient, but the vocals make obvious: this is noise.

Maybe not the best material in the style, but it seems that I have overlooked The Vomit Arsonist and that while exactly a decade ago I reviewed a mcd of theirs that I also liked.

Links: The Vomit Arsonist, Malignant.