Foul/Cannibal Ritual — Split
On Side one we have an ‘Untitled’ track from Foul which starts out with quite a mid-paced looping gallop of two or possibly three layers of crusty and very slightly juddering barbwire static downpours. As the track moves towards the two minute mark the ‘wall’ becomes a little more defined in structure- it’s made up of a roaring & roaming caustic drone element, which has quite a juddering machine gun feel in it’s guts. And a snaking barbwire static weaving tone that’s spiteful yet appealingly sliding it’s way through the roaring ‘n’ roaming drone element. Around the half way point the roaring ‘n’ roaming drone seems to turn slightly more groaning and unwell with an almost ugly synth bass curve appearing ever so often at the edge of the tone; with the snaking barbwire tone keeping it’s lopped course, yet also adding in a little more slight judder to it’s movement. Through-out the rest of the track Foul rubs and bloody treads the two elements into a very impenetrable wall which has a nice slight storm like swirl about it; as your mind tries to hold onto elements and tones as the slip ‘n’ slice into the thick maelstrom of sound. Another very crushing and airless example of hope and reality flatering wall matter from Foul.
Flipping over to side two & we have the Cannibal Ritual track which is entitled ‘Ravenous’. This ‘wall’ rolls into view with a great crusty, muffled and grey mid-pace churning tone which has a second slightly buckled ‘n’ juddering static rise coming out of it. It keeps to this same grim and enclosing ‘wall’ of muffled torture through-out the rest of the track, though it does step up the pace slightly to more urgent & juddering levels a quarter of the way through; yet this doesn’t lessen the bleak and dense grey painfulness of the track, but implies more rapid feeding. To me the track brings to mind slow monition footage of two groups of five or six cannibals swinging a slowly depleting and barely alive body from side to side. And each time it meets either of the two groups the cannibal’s slowly ripping into the body with sharpened teeth, their mouths forming with blood and eyes alight with barbaric lust. This is my first taster of the depraved cannibal obsessed Harsh Noise fruits of Cannibal Ritual and I must say I’m very impressed and want more.
So all in all a very nice yet nasty two way split taking in two unabating ‘walls’ of Hash Noise matter. The release is nicely topped off with a white, black and blue screen printed cover which shows a naked female tired to a tree; along with a few other tied and panicked victims in the foreground all surrounded by blood and flesh thirsty cannibals.