Vomir/Train Cemetery — Split
The pro-looking double labelled cassette comes in a clear case, and this takes in single sided pro printed shelve. The cover & the tapes labels take in black & red paint like shapes, dabs & splatters against an off white background. And on the whole the release looks slight more bright & distinctive, compared with the mainly darker & murky looking artwork that adorns many HNW releases.
So first up on Side A we have the Vomir, which fairly typically is Untitled. The ‘wall’ offered up here is a dense & unforgiving affair, where the tracks layers often seem to blur & haze into each other to create a brutal & impenetrable fog of suffocating sound. The ‘wall’ brings together this buzzing & droning almost industrial like backdrop- this is both very distant & ill-defined. On top of this we get a lose, though uniformed blend of constantly rushing, crudely swirling, and bluntly feasting noise textures- these blend together a fairly narrow selection of lower-to-mid ranged tones. The whole ‘wall’ has quite a disorientating & unbalancing feel to it, and often you feel you like descending down & down in a brutal & battering endless descent. Yet from time to time your mind just catches the shape or pattern of noise texture, and this makes one try to homing in, but more often than not you get waylaid, as the textures here have a fairly close tonal range, meaning it blurs together. On the whole it's another satisfying nihilistic & all enveloping bit of wall-craft from Vomir.
So flipping over to side B, and we have the Train Cemetery. This is entitled “Scaur”, and after the blurred & battering attack of the first side track, this is a lot more layer defined, moody & detailed in it’s unfold. The track opens being built around a complex mesh of the following textures: a pelting & constantly rippling judder, layers of slicing & focused cutting, a set & tight ringing/ metallic jitter. As the track progresses CT skilfully & subtle shifts the layers, with the only firm constant been the ringing textures. The other layers stay fairly close to their original settings, though CT just nudges their flows. Also there seems to be additional layers added into the mix too. By around the twenty minute mark, there is a more sputtering based slicing & juddering feel to the whole thing, as the tension seem to constrict more & more- though though-out you can just make out each layers detail . In the last ten or so minutes the speed & denseness of the whole thing starts to break down, as the ripping judder becomes deeper & more pummelling hacking in it’s attack. Also the smaller slicing elements seem to widen & drift out slightly, and the ringing jitter pares back. All in all this is a really creative & captivating bit of wall-making, managing to blend together perfectly building & tightening tension, great layer control, and a keen yet seared atmosphere.
In conclusion this is a great HNW split- with old school disorientation, sitting along side precise, creative & moody more modern wall-matter. I guess the only downside was that this was so ltd, as it really is worth trying to pick this up in physical form if poss, but as there where only ten copies this is fairly unlikely…oh well I guess a digital download is better than nothing.