Ia-HA-Crax/Cannibal Ritual — Gruesome Death

Here’s the six Volume in the 'Gruesome' series of release on Germanys' Meat Hook Butchery label. Once again it’s a double CDR package offering up a full CDR of noise from each project, but instead of this been purely walled noise the first disc features dense/ creative harsh noise/ PE, alongside a second CDR of HNW.

Once again the release finds the two white-labeled CDRs coming in a double DVD case, with a one-side inlay sheet. For artwork, we get a monochrome picture of screaming women surrounded by cannibals- it looks like it’s been clipped from Italian cannibal film poster. As with the rest of this series, the release is ltd to 50 copies- so you should be able to get your hands on a copy of this still.

The first disc features material from Romania project Ia-HA-Crax- this project has been active since 2017, releasing around fifteen releases thus far- taking in splits & stand alones.  The CDR takes sixty-eight minutes of material- which is broken down into eleven tracks, each of which lasts between four and ten minutes apiece. The sound here is much more electro fired PE/ Harsh noise, though we do get some nice textural bound dwelling moments- and for the most part, it’s a rather enjoyable worthy disc. We go from the throbbing electro churn meets shrill sweeping sourness of “The Dharma-Body Of An Anthropophagus”, through to the buzzing & sourly purring tension of “Tell Me All About A.L!” which features  nicely dense cluster of crudely set & nasty wall texturing. Onto the blurred beats & smashing hazed noise clung of “Vacuum Smashed Healing processes”, through to the sustained wiring electro pulse-meets- textural scrab ‘n’ rub of “Voxhyena”. There's both enough variation in both use of sound & at atmosphere to make this worthy play from beginning to end, which I can’t say for many more harsh noise/ PE focused releases- so thumbs up from me on this first disc.

Onto the second disc, and as with all of the series of releases we get a CDR worth of material from German walled noise project Cannibal Ritual. On this disc, we get fifty-six minutes worth of material which is split into eight tracks- and these have running times between three & ten minutes. We begin with one of discs highlights “Sodomized and Slaughtered” here we find a blend of muffled churning ‘n’  rolling static, and more scaping ‘n’ skating crisp texturing- sadly this only lasts just under seven minutes, I really could have had another ten or so minutes of this, as I really dug the mix of muffled/ comfy churn & lose skating. Midway through the disc we come to the longest track here the wonderfully entitled “Rotten Bones”- this just shy of ten & a half minute track begins with a piercing high pitched sustained before moving in a mid-speed blend of jagged rumbling & hissing scuttling- with the whole thing has almost a crude ragged 'n' gunning groove to it.  The second to last track “Leg amputation” finds a tight juddering purr mixed with smaller scaping & scratching textures- and this has a nice feeling taut & painful dread about it.  On the whole, this is another worthy disc from CR- at times a few of the tracks do sound a little similar in their textural set-up/ attack- but there are enough different & effective moments here to make it worthwhile- with the sound sort of sitting halfway between the projects more intense/ crude and experimental material- which is a good place to be.

So Gruesome Death is another worthy chapter in the Gruesome series- with the non-wall disc been most satisfying in its own right, and Cannibal Ritual offering up another good selection of wall work.