Fäul is a Swedish harsh noise two-piece, who blend black metal visuals and title aesthetics with their violently crunching ‘n’ searing noisemaking. Total Necro is the projects second release, and it appeared in late August of this year- as either C35 or digital DL on Stockholm’s Ominous Recordings.

The smoky transparent C35 comes in a smoked transparent case- this features a fold-out/ single-sided monochrome sleeve. On the front cover, we find a picture of band member Jesuith in corpse paint topped and bottomed by BM fonts.  Inside we have the track listings, and pics of the projects two members- Jesuith-electronics, guitar and tormented shrieks. Quaalxoth- electronics, drums, and howls of mockery. The release had a pressing of thirty-five copies, and as of the time of writing the label still have copies left- and these can be purchased directly from here.

The first side features three tracks, and kicks off with the nearing nine minutes of “Spill the Blood of the lamb before the circle of darkness”. It kicks off with cold BM guitar chimes, brief drum smashes and bayed shrieks, before shifting rapidly into nasty ‘n’ necro harsh noise territory. We find a loose blend of galloping and baying crunch, rushing mid-ranged static clutter, and seesawing mid to high pitched sear ‘n’ junk bash.  Finishing off the first side we have the five minutes forty-four of “Blood, Lust & Perversion” here we find blunt baying ‘n’ skating mids, edged with hissing drag, topped with blend forking to grainy highs.

Over onto the second side and we have another three tracks. Second of these is “Holy, bleeding wounds”- here we find a rewardingly wonky ‘n’ blackened blend of constantly cascading mid-ranged crunch and warbling harmonics- sadly this only last just over the minute mark, and I really feel this could have been effectively extended onto the five/ six-minute mark. The side is finished off with just over eight minutes of “Devil Pig, Goat Christ”- it opens with grimly low slung BM guitar textures and a few bayed shrieks. Fairly soon we switch into blacked ‘n’ crude harsh noise were violently ripping ‘n’ shredding mid-ranged clutter meet sinisterly fork ‘n’ sour sheared high end. Of all the tracks here I think this is most successful- firstly the blend and shift from its BM beginnings works well, secondly, the textures used are nicely necro in their attack, lastly, the blend/ mix of low’s and highs is most rewarding in creating a blend of dark crunch and prime evil bay.

Black Metal and noise have often made good bedfellows- so it’s great to find Fäul once more joining the two together. Sure as a release Total Necro is more(sonically) focused on the noise side of things- but that’s more than ok. In finishing I’d say the best/ most consistent material here is found on the second side of the tape, the first has its moments- but unfortunately, the tracks on this side felt a little interchangeable- with similar textures/ tones been used in a similar way. Nevertheless, if you enjoy where BM gets engulfed by crude ‘n’ blacked harsh noise you’ll be wanting to check out Total Necro.