Nightmare Park — Box Of Teeth
Seemingly the project started in early 2018- and so far has released near 30 digital releases, Box of Teeth is the projects third physical release- and it appears on Florida’s Inner Demon Records. The three ink stamped CDR's come in a small white box- this features stuck on a monochrome artwork of dense trees, & each CDR comes in its own plastic sleeve, and the sets topped off with a tracing paper inlay and a stuffing block. The release came in a hand numbered edition of 42 copies- and as of this review, the label still has copies for sale.
I’m guessing from the track titles here, that the film theme here is Rob Zombies 2005 gruelling & at times darkly amusing road movie The Devils Rejects- as the track titles(well certainly two of them) use dialogue from said film- where the character of Otis B. Driftwood( played by Bill Mosley) beats someone to death on a desert path
So first up on disc one we have “I am The Devil”- this begins with a building blend of searing noise grain wash, murky ‘n’ uneven bass churn, and growing mesh of popping ‘n’ hacking textures. By around the second minute we get the introduction of firstly a knock rattle, and then a caustically liquid like spurting & thick spraying texture. All together these elements create a detailed & layered wall- that feels organically seared- bringing to mind drains sputtering black & foul-smelling liquid, scratching & ripping tree branches, and bleakly buffeting & roasting summer winds. Save from the initial shift there’s not a huge amount of movement here, aside from more layers of cascading & hacking spiteful sub tone action. All in all, it’s a great churning & seared vortex of a wall, which really pulls you in & keeps you held there.
Over onto disc two, and we have the track “And I’m Here To Do The Devils Work”. The track opens in a great bleakly tense & fairly pared back manner- with a blend of spread & stretched ominous bass tones- these are top with a tight-yet-slurred jittering pattern. At just past the two minute mark a thicker layer of rattling judder comes into play- and once again this has quite a slurred & stretched feeling to it, and it feels like the tones are literally pouring into your ears like a mass of hot wax covered ants. Fairly soon we start to get the addition of a slower more crusty & descending rattling/ dragging element - this feels both out of pattern with the other textures and fairly uneven it ’s pressure as if something(maybe a body) is been dragged over either concert floor or rough ground. This mix of seared worming churn and uneven unsettling dragging gives the track a most satisfying blending of feasting intensity & nasty atmospherics- again another very solid & strong wall.
Last up on disc three we have “Interview with Evil”- for the first half or so of this track, we get a more rapid & grinding blend of mid ranged swirling & gallop, grating & searing fan belt like sustains, and distant spinning hiss. Then later we shift gears into a base of bass-bound bothersome churn & roast, which is edged with slightly skittering & rattling selection of fan-belt like sears & holds- for this half of the wall the textures are more blended in both their tonal range & layer dynamics. On the whole, this track feels a bit more roughshod, loose & less crafted compared to the other two tracks on the set- and I'm guessing that’s why it’s my least favorite here. Though there’s no doubt the track works well in both the context of the release & the themes it's portraying- all ending things off in a really, really overloaded & messily seared way.
I’d be hearing murmurs about this project for some months now- so it’s great to finally get to check it out. And I must say I was most impressed with this set- as each ‘wall’ clearly shows seared focus, a good ear for creative textures, with an underlying grounding in both atmospheric & mood. Oh, and I do like the presentation of this release too- as I think 3inc CDR box-sets are one of the great ways to present ‘wall-noise’ releases- think back to classic 'wall-release'- like the excellent seven-disc Brick by Brick comp, or the self-titled four-disc Richard Ramierez- which both came out on the Small Doses label in 2009. Let’s hope there are some more physical releases in the pipeline soon from Nightmare Park!.