Hour of The Wolf — Cobwebs
This is the first release on the new Spider Tapes label that been set up by London based Robert M (whose in HNW project Unearthed and horror influenced dark/ caustic drone project Ghoul). He’s set up the label to release both HNW and plan Hash noise titles that have a horror theme to them, and this tape is a fine opening release for what promises to another great tape label.
The tapes inlay is printed on good quality parchment coloured paper, and features on the front cover a picture of a ghoulish looking living dead figure surrounded by a huge cobweb. Inside there’s just a simple but effective horror comic like picture of a creepy looking cobweb on a black background, and the two tracks titles in thick comic book text either side. And the tape also features a label of the same paper as the inlay- all of which gives it a very nice and professional look.
So onto the music on the tape. Side one finds a side long track entitled “Cobwebs part 1” which opens with this brooding, clanging and grating metal tone, that shortly
gets engulfed by a thick mist of roasting noise and things really turn nasty. As the track progresses Brandal boils-up and then reseeds the roaring and roasting walls of noise that shift and cook your brain. Underneath most of the tracks runtime is a mixture of fairly subtle junk metal brooding-ness ‘n’ creepy clanks, and swirls to slides of murky static hiss. It’s a well thought out and executed track, though I wish sometimes it would dwell a little bit longer with it’s walled moments as it’s more churning and caustic, then hypnotic and nasty.
Over onto side two and we find “Cobwebs part 2” which starts out more grating, slicing and juddering static like in it’s feel than the first side, with buried screams, bays and grim junk metal clutters appearing in the tracks sonic back ground. As the track goes on the main focus becomes a lot more locked and wind battering in its feel, and this side certainly has a more focused wall type feel, though Brandal still brutally sails and grimly bats out junk metal textures and layers of grim noise grain in the background. This is my favourite of the two tracks here, as I think Brandal managers to get the perfect balance between battering wall textures and more shifting/ atmospheric junk matter or noise grains.
So in summing-up this is a very pro looking & well thought out first release from Spider tapes which finds Brandal boiling up two highly creative yet violent tracks. To find out more, listen to samples and pick up a copy pop over to spider tapes blog here