Colossloth — Outstretch Your Hand For The Impress Of Truth
Outstretch Your Hand For The Impress Of Truth is truly a difficult album to describe. It’s a collision of sounds tapping into many vestiges of the experimental music milieu. You’ll find heavy nods to industrial, noise, and drone, along with mangled guitar noodling, digital sound manipulations, and even some symphonic and folkish forays. Intertwining so many genres and sounds might prove to be a schizophrenic affair in lesser hands, however Colossloth manages to weave a compelling and cohesive tapestry.
Outstretch opens with “Cave In Are We Complete,” a haunting piece of atmospheric drone, electronic chirps and squeals, and some samples played in reverse. It’s an interesting contrast of playfulness and doomier tidings. “Of Talons and Teeth” features some heavily mutated guitar that goes from heavy sludge to synth-like chords. “Paint Her Face To Simulate The Bloom” mixes menacing pulses and feedback with fanciful piano work. “The Nameless Saint” could alternately be called “Simon Belmont’s Theme (Colossloth remix)” as it reminds me of a Castlevania OST at times. The album ends on “Your Flag Stands For Nothing,” a caustic piece of plodding guitar strokes and near symphonic elements in the track’s mid section.
All in all, a devilishly clever assemblage of sounds by a player at the top of his game. Far more diverse and not as consistently-dark as his fellow labelmates, yet Cold Spring never seems to steer me wrong.