The Berzerker - Dissimulate
Earache Records - 2002
By Philip Whitehouse
Go to the Earache Records web site.
Imagine, if you will, what it must be like to stand before a firing squad. Blindfolded, the interminable moments passing with infinite slowless, jumbled thoughts and regrets scrambling through your mind. Imagine the torture of waiting, waiting for that single flare of pain that will signal your end. Unpleasant, huh?
Right - now imagine that you're not blindfolded - in fact, you're walking into the firing squad with open arms. And the firing squad don't have rifles - they have mini-guns. And imagine that when they fire, that pain isn't over in an instant - it persists, flaring with new intensity every time a bullet connects - but you love it...
That's what listening to The Berzerker's latest album feels like. Dissimulate is the second offering from the Melbourne-based industro-deathgrinders, and it is one of the fastest, most pulverising albums I've heard since Nasum's last effort. The recruitment of a proper line-up rather than the debut album's solo performance has lent the sound a more organic feel - but this still sounds as chillingly inhuman as the chatter of a HK's laser-rifle in The Terminator.
The riffs lacerate with their Carcass-scrapping-with-Nasum intensity, and The Singer's voice oozes infuriated malevolence. But it is the drummer that deserves credit the most here - the drums are triggered with industrial drum-samples, and the double-bass pedalling is the fastest on record - officially. During the album's last track, a note-for-note cover of Carcass' 'Corporal Jigsore Quandary', the drummer has been confirmed as having hit the drums 1148 times in a single minute. The blindingly fast percussive assault attacks the listener like a localised tornado full of gravel, directly to the face.
That's not to say the drumming carries the music though - the songs are well-constructed enough to stand on their own, 'Last Mistake' in particular containing some catchy-yet-acidic riffery and interesting tempo shifts to retain the interest.
Anyone interested in extremity for extremity's sake deserves to own this album and step up to the firing squad... anyone else... well, we'll just leave you to sweat, blindfolded, before the gunshot arrives...
9/10
Earache Records - 2002
By Philip Whitehouse
Go to the Earache Records web site.
Imagine, if you will, what it must be like to stand before a firing squad. Blindfolded, the interminable moments passing with infinite slowless, jumbled thoughts and regrets scrambling through your mind. Imagine the torture of waiting, waiting for that single flare of pain that will signal your end. Unpleasant, huh?
Right - now imagine that you're not blindfolded - in fact, you're walking into the firing squad with open arms. And the firing squad don't have rifles - they have mini-guns. And imagine that when they fire, that pain isn't over in an instant - it persists, flaring with new intensity every time a bullet connects - but you love it...
That's what listening to The Berzerker's latest album feels like. Dissimulate is the second offering from the Melbourne-based industro-deathgrinders, and it is one of the fastest, most pulverising albums I've heard since Nasum's last effort. The recruitment of a proper line-up rather than the debut album's solo performance has lent the sound a more organic feel - but this still sounds as chillingly inhuman as the chatter of a HK's laser-rifle in The Terminator.
The riffs lacerate with their Carcass-scrapping-with-Nasum intensity, and The Singer's voice oozes infuriated malevolence. But it is the drummer that deserves credit the most here - the drums are triggered with industrial drum-samples, and the double-bass pedalling is the fastest on record - officially. During the album's last track, a note-for-note cover of Carcass' 'Corporal Jigsore Quandary', the drummer has been confirmed as having hit the drums 1148 times in a single minute. The blindingly fast percussive assault attacks the listener like a localised tornado full of gravel, directly to the face.
That's not to say the drumming carries the music though - the songs are well-constructed enough to stand on their own, 'Last Mistake' in particular containing some catchy-yet-acidic riffery and interesting tempo shifts to retain the interest.
Anyone interested in extremity for extremity's sake deserves to own this album and step up to the firing squad... anyone else... well, we'll just leave you to sweat, blindfolded, before the gunshot arrives...
9/10
