If Jonah Hex were to bash John Wayne's head open with a rock after shooting him in the neck and then slowly drag the body across the desert this would be the soundtrack heard within the harsh sandstorms and echoing across jagged red rocky valleys.
Ennio Morricone has become a heroin addict. Merle Haggard slits his wrists in the back of a pick-up truck while White2 tears apart the speakers.
Horses hang their heads so low their necks snap. Tumbleweeds turn into dust. Cacti needles invert and blood flows...
1. Mirage
The album opens with blowing wind and minimalist reverbed clean guitar strumming setting the tone for what's to come. A short and ominous introduction.
2. Land of Some Other Order
This track begins with more clean guitars but now accompanied with slow drums and what seems to sound like a droning bass guitar or possibly the baritone guitar. Trombone is actually used in this song also. The various tones melt into each other and slide along smoothly and perfectly. Picture an outlaw on horseback approaching a ghost town up on the horizen. You'd hear this.
3. The Dire and Ever Circling Wolves
Tubular bells create the sound of wind chimes here. More plodding clean guitars and drums.There's a, dare I say, distinct country-western aura within this track and throughout most of the album. Imagine every score you've ever heard in a television or movie scene involving cowboys served a large dose of darkness and compacted into about eight minutes. It has been done here.
4. Left in the Desert
More wind and wind chimes with guitar ambience creeping in the background. A very short "intro in the middle of the album" type of track.
5. Lens of Unrectified Night
Yes, clean guitars again. Slow twanging over slow drumming. The difference between this track and the others is that seems to let a little "hope" creep it's way into the notes. But when I say a little, I mean it.
6. An Inquest Concerning Teeth
This song features banjo from what I can hear. It's rather hard to tell which of the various instruments are being used at certain points because they are sort of drenched in a clean, harmonial feedback.It's kind of amazing after listened to numerous times.
7. Raiford (The Felon Wind)
It sounds like there's going to be a standoff in front of the old saloon or some such place. Cymbals are used to create the sound of spurs over slow war drums. There's banjo and trombone with clean and distorted guitar coming up with a wild atmosphere up front while producing another layer of atmosphere with feedback below everything.
8. The Dry Lake
If you've ever heard the wind instrument used in Buddhist temples when reciting the Mahakala Tantra you'd recognize the sound the trombone carries over from Raiford.Underneath this sound is something reminiscent of the avant-jazz scores to films like The Salton Sea or Naked Lunch. Also includes tonal droning and samples of neighing horses. Short and haunting.
9. Tethered to the Polestar
Minimalist clean guitars signaling the end. Like Michael Hedges with one hundred pound weights on his arms. This continues over the drums and varied guitar sounds until the disc, unfortunately, stops spinning...
Hex; Or Printing in the Infernal Method spawns a dark, spacious, slithering, post-country doomscape. Like one giant song divided into nine tracks. It's a concept album without words. An audial framework for "something" so massive it couldn't possibly exist simultaneously with mere human beings. Earth are providing the score while forcing the listener to provide the imagery. Just be sure not to get stuck there...
-- R.V.D.H. (me)
Hex; Or Printing in the Infernal Method will be released September 20th on Southern Lord.
Southern Lord Homepage: http://www.southernlord.com
Review located @ http://www.astro-zombie.com/reviews.cfm
Ennio Morricone has become a heroin addict. Merle Haggard slits his wrists in the back of a pick-up truck while White2 tears apart the speakers.
Horses hang their heads so low their necks snap. Tumbleweeds turn into dust. Cacti needles invert and blood flows...
1. Mirage
The album opens with blowing wind and minimalist reverbed clean guitar strumming setting the tone for what's to come. A short and ominous introduction.
2. Land of Some Other Order
This track begins with more clean guitars but now accompanied with slow drums and what seems to sound like a droning bass guitar or possibly the baritone guitar. Trombone is actually used in this song also. The various tones melt into each other and slide along smoothly and perfectly. Picture an outlaw on horseback approaching a ghost town up on the horizen. You'd hear this.
3. The Dire and Ever Circling Wolves
Tubular bells create the sound of wind chimes here. More plodding clean guitars and drums.There's a, dare I say, distinct country-western aura within this track and throughout most of the album. Imagine every score you've ever heard in a television or movie scene involving cowboys served a large dose of darkness and compacted into about eight minutes. It has been done here.
4. Left in the Desert
More wind and wind chimes with guitar ambience creeping in the background. A very short "intro in the middle of the album" type of track.
5. Lens of Unrectified Night
Yes, clean guitars again. Slow twanging over slow drumming. The difference between this track and the others is that seems to let a little "hope" creep it's way into the notes. But when I say a little, I mean it.
6. An Inquest Concerning Teeth
This song features banjo from what I can hear. It's rather hard to tell which of the various instruments are being used at certain points because they are sort of drenched in a clean, harmonial feedback.It's kind of amazing after listened to numerous times.
7. Raiford (The Felon Wind)
It sounds like there's going to be a standoff in front of the old saloon or some such place. Cymbals are used to create the sound of spurs over slow war drums. There's banjo and trombone with clean and distorted guitar coming up with a wild atmosphere up front while producing another layer of atmosphere with feedback below everything.
8. The Dry Lake
If you've ever heard the wind instrument used in Buddhist temples when reciting the Mahakala Tantra you'd recognize the sound the trombone carries over from Raiford.Underneath this sound is something reminiscent of the avant-jazz scores to films like The Salton Sea or Naked Lunch. Also includes tonal droning and samples of neighing horses. Short and haunting.
9. Tethered to the Polestar
Minimalist clean guitars signaling the end. Like Michael Hedges with one hundred pound weights on his arms. This continues over the drums and varied guitar sounds until the disc, unfortunately, stops spinning...
Hex; Or Printing in the Infernal Method spawns a dark, spacious, slithering, post-country doomscape. Like one giant song divided into nine tracks. It's a concept album without words. An audial framework for "something" so massive it couldn't possibly exist simultaneously with mere human beings. Earth are providing the score while forcing the listener to provide the imagery. Just be sure not to get stuck there...
-- R.V.D.H. (me)
Hex; Or Printing in the Infernal Method will be released September 20th on Southern Lord.
Southern Lord Homepage: http://www.southernlord.com
Review located @ http://www.astro-zombie.com/reviews.cfm
