BURMESE / FISTULA (s/t) Split-CD
Crucial Blast are experts in exploring extreme musical areas and so this split-release is definitely not for the timid. BURMESE are cerebral for sure, but physical (as in hard hitting) too. They affect you emotionally, morally, even metaphysically. I bet, no two people hear the same thing when listening to BURMESE, which makes reviewing their ten short songs especially difficult. In the world of 4/4 beats and 1-4-5 chord progressions, you can give the listener something tangible to grap onto, but BURMESE left that world long ago. They're masters of deconstruction, and although they've interwoven a few rhythmical patterns in some of the here included sonic splinters, this music is free from any conventional framework. While listening again and again to their material, my conclusion is that this has more in common with free jazz, Whitehouse industrial stuff, or John Zorn's extreme avantgarde aesthetics.
Sludge titans FISTULA are the other uncomfortable band of this tasteful split release, and they attack the listener with four brandnew ultra-heavy cuts. During the last years, this group had build a strong underground following, due to convincing live shows and outstanding albums, split 7"'s etc. and they are one of my favourite bands in the so-called sludge genre. "Green Lung" is a nice example of what will happen if you smoke 1st class weed, while recording a song, and it shows that the guys of FISTULA have a good taste in humour. "Powers That Be" and "The Basilisk" are two of the best tracks I've ever heard from this group. Both cuts include pulverizing up-tempo parts in best thrash metal tradition, without losing their crushing '16 tons' heaviness. The last song here "Caterpillar" starts very friendly before it changes into a Grief-ish monolith that could've been an outtake from the "Torso" album. Keep your fingers cross that the mighty FISTULA can continue their path of high-quality brutality with the next releases. I think, a lot of you will have their problems with BURMESE, but if you see listening to music as some sort of extreme sport this disc could be your next challenge. Well, I dig it!
(KK)