Hour Of The Wolf - The Sun Became Black As Sackcloth Of Hair And The [Satan Din - 2010]This single sided 80 minute tape offers up two lengthy dwells in hope drenching, nasty & grim wall making from Norwegian based Hour of the Wolf- which is of course the HWN project of the highly prolific Andreas Brandal who is also in Flesh Coffin, Drevne Bolesti and many other projects. Up first we have track one which is entilted ‘The Sun Became Black As Sackcloth Of Hair’ this is a very bleak, windswept & nasty slice of ‘wall- making’ which finds Brandal building the track around ultra grim & blacked sheets of hammering, drenching & cold rain downpour like static deluges of brutal tone. The tracks just keeps battering away at you in an unrelenting & mainly staid form for it’s just under twenty minutes runtime. Truly this is one of the most bleack & nasty slices of wall making I've heard from this or any other project. Then with little or no gap in the proceedings we’re straight into the second and last track ‘And The Moon Became Like Blood ‘ which finds Brandal conjuring up another bleak & completely hopless 'wall', which is built around a revolving, screaming & bellowing 'wind roaring down a tunnel' type wall attack. Though-out the tracks just shy of twenty minute runtime Brandal sends out sudden reels of effected & slightly jittered static tone which briefly bucks the ‘wall’s surface here & there, but does little real damage or alteration to the tracks grim & unforgiving ‘wall’. Though what does happen at about the midway point is that the tracks main tone becomes alot more hammering hailstone in it’s attack- but this does nothing to lessen the track attack or brutal spirit and you can only noticed if your locked into the ‘wall’s shape, tone & constant hope battering state. This maybe has a few lighter & vaguely warming edges to it compared with the first track, but in reality it’s another very nasty & hope crushing slice of wall making. The track strips it’s self right down for the last few minute as Brandal circles a grey, numbing and slowly fading drone which mangers to capture the feeling of total emptiness & lost hope very well. So in summing-up two very nasty, primal & hope shredding slices of HNW matter from one of most respected figures in the european HNW scene & the noise/ experimental scene in general. Roger Batty
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