Sado Rituals / Polarlicht — The Swamp Mansion of the Crocodile People /

The Swamp Mansion of the Crocodile People / Hellfire & Honeycomb is a walled noise split with a dense to moody sound, and a southern gothic theme. It features Poland’s Sado Rituals with a nearly thirty-minute track, and three tracks from the rather mysterious Polarlicht running between seven and nine minutes.

The digital release features a cover photo of a barbed wire fence, which is fine, I guess, in its subtle suggestion of industrial-touched American Southern gothic to the image. Anyway, the release can be found here.

So first up we have the Sado Rituals track, which takes up the lion's share of the split at the twenty-nine and nine seconds mark- it’s entitled “The Swamp Mansion of the Crocodile People”. It‘s a densely murky track bringing together a fixed low-end galloping/ churning roll, this locked sort of mood mid-range/ almost harmonic tone simmer, and a selection of distant pelting-to-rattling junk-like sub-tones.  I like the feeling of murky weight and subtle atmospheric unease to this 'wall'.

Onto the three Polarlicht tracks. These are listed as Hell Fire & Honeycomb I to III. “I” is a mix of murky to eerier spin, industrial grating, and mid-range purring to hissing rush. “II” is a silence-spaced blend of uneasy on ‘n’ off purr,  distant tone spin/ wiry circling, and uneasy sparking.  And “III” is a thicker affair- with a weave of cluttering churn, murky bass hover, and seared rattle.

All in all, this is a worthy split, with the dense, moody murk of the Sado Ritual track, working well against the seared industrial wall unease of the  Polarlicht tracks.