Die Reitenden Leichen — Furor Necroticus

Here’s an ungainly package: a cdr in a slim dvd case, held in a little plastic sack punctured with burn holes - you won’t be filing this elegantly in your neat collection! The black and white artwork alludes to black metal, but has a much more “design” (almost cartoonish) feel to it. The cdr contains two tracks, both untitled, amounting to over thirty-six minutes of wall noise.

The first of these emerges with a shimmer of whining radio noise - that kind of detuned static tone. Underneath this ethereal covering, is a chewy, lo-fi wall; active and bubbling. Within this wall, murky elements move around, possibly even reverberating a little - this is the dirty “bubbling” that provides such a mutable texture. In and out of this weaves a definitely pitched tone, possibly feedback; a surprising and effective device. The whining tone acts as a haze over the whole track, giving is a very washed out “no-fi” feel in places; but the overall effect is of a very carefully constructed, well thought-out wall. There’s a definite “organic” tone to proceedings, which harkens back to Lungwash for my ears. But rather then Lungwash’s “dirty knees” approach, which brings to mind dirt paths and bushes; this is the wide lens, panoramic view of a landscape’s structure.

The second, untitled, piece crashes in with thunderous urgency. A speeding, abrasive wall; genuinely rough and forceful. Embedded in this are shrill treble stutters, which are irritant and needle-like; whilst the low-end acts as an oppressive drone. As the wall progresses, it shifts and takes on an even crunchier form; but still with a steady pace, spitting with kinetic energy. Near the thirteen-minute mark, this crunchiness is refined even further; as the wall becomes an incredibly grainy, low-mid rattle. Despite this quite abrupt development removing much of the earlier force from its sails, the wall still remains very strong and vigorous. In the last minute or so, the wall breaks down into bare chunks of noise - the very building blocks of the larger sound. These become almost restful textures in their last few seconds.

“Furor Necroticus” is very simply a great release: a great project on a great label. Despite the heavily stylised black metal trappings (“Hail Satan” and “666”, for example), which don’t promise intelligent, sombre recordings, these are indeed very well constructed, even cerebral, pieces. The two tracks balance each other out and offer distinctly different takes on HNW, culminating in a very comprehensive release - and one which I suspect is now long gone.