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Horrible Mess is a Canadian based HNW/Harsh noise project that has been active since seemingly 2011, putting out around twenty or so releases- which take in split tapes, compilation appearances, and a few stand alone tape releases.  "The Well" appears on American wall noise label Breaching Static, (run by Alex Nowacki of HNW/HN project Boar), and the release offers up a rewarding selection of moody, brutal & often quite sonically descriptive HNW, oh & it’s also the first stand alone CDR release from this project.

The CDR comes in black carpe paper slip sleeve which features a stuck on picture of grim looking iron grated well. Inside along with the CDR is a single piece of white paper inlay that takes in the track listing, and blog pages for both the project & the label. This release comes in a edition of 20 copies, and was released mid February 2013.

The release conists of three tracks in all, which last between just over the ten minute mark to around the fifteen minutes mark.  First up we have  the wonderfully entitled “Head Against Brick”, the tracks built around a taut ‘n’ tense mixture of billowing/juddering low-end noise, & shovelling/ scraping/ jittering mid-ranged  static grained noise. The low-end stays rapid but mainly fixed through-out, while the mid-range textures are quite active & altering, and at times get quite rapid & agitated- yet they never move too far from there shovelling/ scraping/ jittering feel.  The track has a nice crunching, scraping & dragging feeling to it, which does really give the feeling of one’s head/face being pulled, smashed, and grinded along a brick wall…by the end of the track it almost feel’s like you’ve got concrete & brick burns.

Next up we have “Descent”, and this brings together a billowing, descending & semi-tumbling weathered low- end back drone, which to start with is  played over by a fixed static licked jittering tone.  This track feels a little less manic & more moody than the last track, though as it progresses the back drone seems to become more weathered, murky & subterranean. Also as the track continues these rumbling & dripping dank aquatic sub-tones take hold too, and these sort of start to blur & melt the textures around it as it moves away from HNW towards ANW.

Lastly we have “The Bottom”, and this is an extremely heavy & meaty track to end the release. The ‘walls’ built around a thick mass of  bass droning ‘n’ billowing noise, that’s weaved with a mixture of slow yet weighty tumbling/ spinning water tonality, and drilling ‘n’ buzzing white static fixed-ness. The track has a dense, airless feel to it, yet there is quite a nice tonally separation too, and really it does feel like your crawling through dank tunnels that lead off the bottom of the well, and all around you  can hear tumbling & fall water, with seemingly the brick work it’s self pressing in on you.

I must say "The Well" stands as one of my favourite HNW releases so far this year, as all three tracks here show both creative sonic flare, brutality, and a really very effective atmospheric focus. So if you dig well thought-out, intense, yet moody walled noise I strongly recommend tracking down one of this release twenty copies before they are all gone!.