Death Frees Every Soul/Ataraxy — Sodom and Gomorrah
For those not up on their bible reading, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah comes from the book of Book of Genesis, in the old Testament. The story tells of the cites of Sodom and Gomorrah were people are given over to immorality and all sorts of wickedness. The Bible tells us the inhabitants were all depraved. Although God mercifully desired to spare these two ancient cities even for the sake of a few righteous people, none lived there. So, God sent two angels disguised as men to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.
The Altar Of Waste house style clear DVD case takes in a old colour oil painting of the story, and on the reverse cover you get the whole story reprinted as it is in the scriptures.
The release features three tracks in all- one from each artists, and one collaborative track. The two solo tracks last around fifteen mintues a piece, and the collaborative track comes in at the twenty minute mark.
The first track up is from Death Frees Every Soul, and it's entitled “Sodom”. The ‘wall’ is built around this low-end roaming billow, which sounds akin to a huge truck rumbling through a network of underground tunnels. And around this main tone is a constant & taunt sheen of consistent crinkling ‘n’ crackling static. The low-end billow slowly roams back and forth, while the crinkling ‘n’ crackling tone remains fairly fixed- though as the whole thing progresses the ‘wall’ does feel like it starting to very slowly fade back, but the track never fully shifts into ANW mode- it just hints at it. All told this opening track is a satisfying mixture of bone grinding brutality and ominous brood.
Track two is taken up Ataraxy’s “Gomorrah”, and this ‘wall’ is built around a taunt ‘n’ tensioned mixture of low end muffled juddering, a more crisp jittering, and later on a billowing ‘n’ rumbling sub-tone. The ‘wall’ remains very set & fixed through-out(save for the rise of the already mentioned sub-tone), but as a whole the track has a rather appealing relentless pummelling feel to it. All told this tracks crowded & taut feel works as an effective contrast to the first tracks ominous yet brutal attack.
So lastly we have the collaborative track, and this is entitled “Judgement”. It opens with a lo-fi, stark & set back mixture of worming & tight jittering, which is played over by a thinner weave of loose hazed juddering. At the minute mark the ‘wall’ brief shifts of to a more drilling, focused & mid ranged feel, but with-in a thirty secounds it’s once again reverted to it’s original setting- though-out rest of the track the 'wall' loosely moves between these two settings. On the whole this track has quite a lose ‘n’ blurred yet still fairly searing feel to it. I did enjoy this track, though I can’t really say it brought to mind a judgement of any form, but that’s just my take on it.
So to sum-up, this release features two rewarding solo tracks, and the collaborative track is ok; but as I mentioned above it didn’t really seem to fit it’s title, or the end of the Sodom and Gomorrah story- so as a result I’m giving this release a three instead of the four kudos mark I’d like to have given it…but never-the-less this is a rewarding & worthy HNW release.