Allegory Chapel Ltd. — Modus Operandi

I thought Allegory Chapel Ltd was a familiar name to me, but it turns out I must have been thinking of someone else; to add insult to my injury, Discogs informs me that they’ve been producing sounds for over 35 years now, so my apologies to ACL and a salute to their persistent endeavours. This digipak CD has eight tracks, varying in length from around three minutes to over ten minutes - the shortest a collaboration with no less a figure than Monte Cazazza. The album combines noise, ambience, drone, synths, beats - and soul samples.

The first track, ‘Caverns’, is dominated by crystalline dripping noises, small randomised synth sounds, with waves of reverberating noise rising and falling throughout; true to its name, it does indeed conjure up some kind of cavern. The next piece, ‘Fertilizer Truck Diaries’, brings those harsher textures to the fore, with noise tracks split across the stereo field, scuffing and flowing through the speakers; these dynamic, shifting roars are sometimes accompanied by a tight delay feeding back underneath; it’s refreshingly ‘primitive’, an old fashioned blast - reminiscent of 90s Japanese noise. With ‘Distributed Organs, Flesh Feedback [Instrumental]’, a new element suddenly appears: a drum machine, which lays out deliberately retro-sounding beats and sounds; these are combined with acidic bass, and equally retro sounding synth lines and drones, to create a noisy kosmische expanse - Tangerine Dream on steroids. The title track is more echoing noise and feedback, coupled with slowly phasing synths, however the end section is possibly the highlight of Modus Operandi, a stabbing, martial rhythm and melody, buried under soaring feedback. ‘Come Forth’, the fifth work, layers submerged whispers and cries over reverbed beats, which march along on a bass rhythm surrounded by glitching higher frequency electronics; these latter elements subside at the end, leaving just the vocals, giving the track a somewhat gothic feel. The next piece, ‘Cthulhu Rising [Omega Mix]’, returns to retro drums and retro snare sounds, with strained vocals cutting across an insistent synth riff; it’s reminiscent of acts like Boy Harsher who nod to industrial culture whilst occupying the dancefloor, though here it’s a less refined, less poppy version. The penultimate track, and shortest, ‘ICBM’, features Monte Cazazza doing something - it’s unclear what - and again, there are beats, noisy interferences, echoing vocals, but here the tone is different and the piece better focussed; despite being the shortest track, it feels like there is a lot packed in, and it might indeed be the shorter length that makes it sound more accomplished than the longer pieces surrounding it. It hits harder. In that regard, the final effort, ‘Love Will [Live On KXLU]’, is unfortunate, as it’s rather thin; the live work centres the processing of a vocal sample, the kind of soul thing you might hear on a dance track, and underpins this with waves of noise and what sounds like a fleet of helicopters approaching. However, the processing doesn’t really do anything interesting on a sonic level, nor does it comment on the sampled material itself; it just feels rather insubstantial compared to the previous tracks.

I must admit that on my first listen I felt that most tracks had one idea which they beat into the ground, however, repeated listening opened Modus Operandi up more; what’s perhaps most intriguing is the sense of time it plays with, several tracks have retro-leaning sounds or approaches but these are combined with contemporary technologies and sounds, and the overall effect is never kitsch or arched. As stated above, the old school rush of  ‘Fertilizer Truck Diaries’ is exhilarating, the end section of ‘Modus Operandi’ intriguing, and the retro drum sounds have a genuine charm, as opposed to being tacky. I do think that the shorter length of  ‘ICBM’ gives it a presence that the other tracks lack, but regardless this is solid - and varied - stuff on the whole, and an interesting release.