Amps Kill — Wretched Inheritance

Packed to the gills with noisy goodness, Amps Kill's Wretched Inheritance is ten album tracks followed by five remixes by various artists. All told, this allows Amps to craft a vibrant and free flowing sonic landscape that brings the listener on a trek through the passage of time and its ravages on all that it encounters. With the opening bass hit and noisy oscillations, "Vermin" begins the album with a dark force that quickly pulls the listener in. This post-industrial paean has traces of power electronics and death industrial feeding its fire, and its movement and layers are strong and clear. Not overly crowded with noise or muddied with waves of reverb, Wretched Inheritance is clean and clear, allowing for more of the sounds to be appreciated and more closely examined. The album itself is described as "cinematic," but I feel that it is more akin to being a descriptive soundscape with vocal samples added to keep the material closer to the death/PE roots and influences. That's not to say that parts of it do not have cinematic inklings, but the album works very well on its own to create the mental picture and story line(s) felt by Bailey when this was written/recorded. With the source material being something everyone is exposed to and something that very many of us fear each day, Wretched Inheritance thrives by allowing the listener to take from this what they desire and have their own internal monologue about mortality.

 

Slowly rolling forth like time itself, Amps Kill's Wretched Inheritance is a dark and grim electronic look at death, decay, and the ravages of time on everything and everyone. Using noise, heavy oscillations, vocal samples, and a number of other hard sounds, this post-industrial work is as cold as its unfeeling and non judgemental source material. With everything nicely laid out for easy absorption and digestion, Wretched Influence will garner many spins as one contemplates what lies ahead for their soul, mind, and physical body.