Mercurial Rites
Following up on that excellent Three Legged Race album for Spectrum Spools, Robert Beatty regroups with his Hair Police posse for their first album of new material in 5 years - and it's a terrifying affair. 'Mercurial Rites' pits the hard-working trio of Beatty alongside Mike Connolly and Trevor Tremaine, breaking form with their individual projects to reprise the sort of petrifying atmospheres and energy not heard since their defining early moments such as 'Obedience Cuts' or the awfully disturbing scapes of later records 'Drawn Dread' and 'Prescribed Burning'. Refusing to join the noise scene's dancefloor exodus, it takes shape as eight disciplined and often brutal noise abstractions, casting the sort of larynx-shredding vocals heard on '80s era Whitehouse sides against buckling metallic drones, punishing percussions, detuned synths and alarming levels of feedback and distortion. Yet, rather than regressing to a primordial soup, they've distinguished each element within its space, isolating frequencies and planing each sound to fit uncomfortably yet effectively within the terrifying mass and allowing space for the dread and darkness to percolate and diffuse like a seriously bad dream that sticks in the mind after you've woken. RIYL Wolf Eyes, Prurient, Whitehouse - not for the faint-hearted, but boy it's an exhilirating listen for the brave.
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Following up on that excellent Three Legged Race album for Spectrum Spools, Robert Beatty regroups with his Hair Police posse for their first album of new material in 5 years - and it's a terrifying affair. 'Mercurial Rites' pits the hard-working trio of Beatty alongside Mike Connolly and Trevor Tremaine, breaking form with their individual projects to reprise the sort of petrifying atmospheres and energy not heard since their defining early moments such as 'Obedience Cuts' or the awfully disturbing scapes of later records 'Drawn Dread' and 'Prescribed Burning'. Refusing to join the noise scene's dancefloor exodus, it takes shape as eight disciplined and often brutal noise abstractions, casting the sort of larynx-shredding vocals heard on '80s era Whitehouse sides against buckling metallic drones, punishing percussions, detuned synths and alarming levels of feedback and distortion. Yet, rather than regressing to a primordial soup, they've distinguished each element within its space, isolating frequencies and planing each sound to fit uncomfortably yet effectively within the terrifying mass and allowing space for the dread and darkness to percolate and diffuse like a seriously bad dream that sticks in the mind after you've woken. RIYL Wolf Eyes, Prurient, Whitehouse - not for the faint-hearted, but boy it's an exhilirating listen for the brave.
Following up on that excellent Three Legged Race album for Spectrum Spools, Robert Beatty regroups with his Hair Police posse for their first album of new material in 5 years - and it's a terrifying affair. 'Mercurial Rites' pits the hard-working trio of Beatty alongside Mike Connolly and Trevor Tremaine, breaking form with their individual projects to reprise the sort of petrifying atmospheres and energy not heard since their defining early moments such as 'Obedience Cuts' or the awfully disturbing scapes of later records 'Drawn Dread' and 'Prescribed Burning'. Refusing to join the noise scene's dancefloor exodus, it takes shape as eight disciplined and often brutal noise abstractions, casting the sort of larynx-shredding vocals heard on '80s era Whitehouse sides against buckling metallic drones, punishing percussions, detuned synths and alarming levels of feedback and distortion. Yet, rather than regressing to a primordial soup, they've distinguished each element within its space, isolating frequencies and planing each sound to fit uncomfortably yet effectively within the terrifying mass and allowing space for the dread and darkness to percolate and diffuse like a seriously bad dream that sticks in the mind after you've woken. RIYL Wolf Eyes, Prurient, Whitehouse - not for the faint-hearted, but boy it's an exhilirating listen for the brave.