Death Is A Gift presents us with two around fifteen-minute examples of blunt and bothersome HNW, which is themed around casualties of War. The release is a digital download put out by UK’s Death To Dynamics.

The cover artwork follows the tone of the two tracks here i.e., crude and dense- with a monochrome picture of the soldiers head, arm and gun half-buried in a forest floor.  The release can be downloaded directly from here . 

The Vessel Of Flesh project is from Greenbrier, Tennessee- and going from their band camp they started around October of last year. With seemingly most of the project's output focusing on war-based themes- which I’ve always felt makes as a great bedfellow for the walled noise form.

First up we have "Life Is A Curse", and this comes in at the 15.05 mark. Here we find a densely packed and thick blend of consistently hacking rip, rapidly drying cement-like roll, and crudely rattling bass clutter 'n' purr. Together these elements create a starkly thick feeling of hopeless pummelling, and I’m getting very grim images of barely alive soldiers crawling through blood and shattered bone thick war field mud. It’s both a simply constricting and barrenly brutal wall, which offers no light or hope.

Next, we have the title track, and this comes in at the shorter 14.02. Here we find a starker, and slightly more open mixture of muffled bass bore ‘n’ drone, which is topped with a rough and constantly rattling mid-ranged element. The whole thing brings to mind monochrome night-time bombing missions, as bitter and flesh stinging winter rain pelts down unrelenting. The track is a nice starker counterbalance to the denser bass pummeling of the first track.

It must be a good few years since I’ve heard any walled noise that focused in on the grim brutality of war- so it’s great to see this Greenbrier, Tennessee project appearing. If you are looking for a no-nonsense HNW with a nasty and highly crude, this is the release for you.