Nighttime In The Abyss / Skjelver — We Who Writhe In Blood And Desperation
Opening up the release we have the three tracks from Columbia Missouri Nighttime In The Abyss- this one man project creates a bone chilling & disorientating sound mostly based around layers of tar black vocals, chilling vocal effects, and minimal darkened/ hellish sometimes noise licked drone matter. The tracks on offer here last between just the over the eight minute to nearing the eleven minute mark, and each is a greatly satisfying mix of extremely ghoulishness, hell-bound atmospherics, very convincing horror bound sound making, and unsettling dark religious like wavering word/sound scaping. The tracks move from mixers of baying living dead like vocals that are mixed with layered demonic grunts ‘n’ mumbles, and chilling noise drone undercurrents. Onto rising yet creepy & unsettling drone-scapes, which are a drift with troubled to suddenly possessed preacher man like spoken word matter.
Next we have three tracks from Skjelver- this project is a two piece from South Carolina, and they create a mix of stretched-out baying/ blacked vocals, nightmarish & seared tone dwells, bleak & stripped guitar picks, with a grim 'n' hellish noise tinged ambient underbelly. This projects three tracks last between nine & eleven minute mark, and each of the tracks creates a nicely pained & darkly off-kilter vibe- sometimes there blackly psychedelic & dreamily psychotic, and at other times there taut, tense & unsettling. The project sound is clearly influenced by both crude black metal & power electronics, but it’s redefined down to something that hovers between (mostly)stripped back blacked noise & psycho ambience
All told this is a most disturbing & harrowing split release, with Nighttime In The Abyss & Skjelver making perfect sonic bedfellows for a truly nightmarish & sanity testing sonic trip.