As a kid, I was a metalhead. Sue me! I lived in the countryside; the most extreme things I could find back then were hard rock and metal. And there is nothing wrong with acknowledging your roots. But later, I realised that the things I liked were the clash between the extremity of the metal in combination with the long elevated intros or ‘dark, creepy tracks’ that one could find on some of those albums. Take, for example, Venom with ‘Buried Alive’ melting into ‘Raise The Dead’ from the ‘Black Metal’ album. The tension between those two, well, I remember this feeling still, and it was 43 years ago! What I want to say with this is that somehow this release doesn’t surprise me at all, yet surprised me completely.
Cold Spring Records releases this split album between Iggor Cavalera and Shane Embury. Iggor, who we know of Sepultura, Soulwax, Mudo, and Shane, the bass player of Napalm Death, Brujeria, Dark Sky Burial and many other projects. Not two beginners when it comes to working with extremes in sound, you will have to agree. And in front of me, these two released a 12″ vinyl where they both got a side to fill. You can get the black vinyl, limited white vinyl or the CD. Or digital, but well … We all know that music in this style is best listened to in the safety of your home, on a good sound setup, sitting in your favourite spot with a nice drink and proper company. It’s not the stuff you stream from Spotif*ck on shitty earphones.
“Own Your Darkness” is Shane’s piece in just under 14 minutes. This leaves more than enough vinyl to fully embrace the basics of this track, which are deep synth lines and very creative use of his bass. I’ll see him play live this Thursday with Napalm Death, and I can’t wait. The composition is maybe a little bit in the direction of what you would / could expect from what I described earlier, an experimental piece that would fit a metal album perfectly. It’s partially a two-note/chord drone piece where, through sound design, an enormous build-up takes place. Resulting in a noisy drone where so much is happening that you have to listen to it a few times even to grasp the beauty hidden. It all has a very analogue feel, meaning there isn’t a single moment where I think a computer with typical digital sound manipulation (granulizing, sampling, etc) is added. It can all be done on tape, explaining the beautiful compressed sound. It’s a massive, well-produced, constantly pressurised piece where you can lose yourself. Maybe that’s where the title refers: lose yourself, but ‘own your darkness’.
“Neon Gods” is the title of the almost 20-minute piece Iggor Cavalera added to this release. There is so much happening here. It is as if he’s still exploring his palette of different paints with which he is painting his sonic sculptures. The opening part is kinda ‘lonely’ as reflected in ‘Paradise Disowned’ by Lustmord. And then the throbbing pulse leads the way into more complex noise territory which reminded me directly of ‘Jeux de Terre’ by Vromb. A massive drone follows the experimentation, slowly introducing the final moments as an intense, noisy, incoherent structure built from voices, noise and delays. After 19 minutes the silence remains as a static noise resembling the needle in the final groove. Wow … What can I say about it? Many different styles of noise and minimalism are covered here, and Iggor is going through many different perspectives on sound in 20 minutes. I only hope someone will give him the possibility for a full release where he can go deeper into the different chapters of his capabilities. I feel the stories he wants to tell are strong, and the words are there, but at the same time, he tries to put so much in there that (except for the 2nd part) the message gets lost. It’s like ready only the titles on the news page, but not the content of the articles. I want a whole ‘book’ !!! The stories he’s telling are great!
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