TORTURE WHEEL / MOSS (Thee Bridge Ov Madness) Split-CD
Nothingness Records, who are specialists in releasing extreme doom and other obscure music, have released this split last year in 2004, featuring TORTURE WHEEL, hailing from Hamilton, Ohio, and UK-based destroyers MOSS. The first three songs are from TORTURE WHEEL, formed by E.M. Hearst as a side project to his main band, Wraith Of The Ropes. This band never crossed my way and is still unknown for me, so I better start to write about his project. All in all, I would file TORTURE WHEEL next to bands like Skepticism or Evoken, and especially the second track "Chapel (The Shattered Stained Glass)" is super heavy funeral doom, played in its best and effective way. The first track "Sarah (In the Black Mirror)" is also very nice, but the cheesy keyboards in background are destroying a lot, and adding an unwanted goth-touch to it. Ok, I'm pretty sure, that E.M. Hearst wants to have this goth-like atmosphere, but I never was a big fan of that. The third song, entitled "Blood Mirror" (The Crawling Faces)" is a successful combination between gothic elements and heaviest funeral doom, and so I think, that TORTURE WHEEL are miles away from being groundbreaking or outstanding, but if you dig above mentioned bands, than give this a try. But now we have MOSS, who are the reason, why TORTURE WHEEL sounds like a gothic boygroup on this split.
Since the band was formed in mid-2001, they have released some demos and split-cd's and had earned a pretty good reputation in the underground circles. MOSS are one of those gangs who say, that they wanted to create the heaviest and most nihilistic raw doom on earth, but than most of this bands came up with a lame and thin sound. But MOSS have turned their sick visions into reality, and the result is a devastating sound that can't be described with words. This is total destruction of music and eardrums, and the tools are mind-blowing H-E-A-V-Y riffs, a complete bleak and unhuman vocal assault, and tons of feedback and distortion. Their contributions, entitled "Aldebaran" and "BeneathBelow" are two long-winding sonic beasts that will make you forget time (and maybe more....!). MOSS don't use any grooves or melodies, and confront the listener with an extreme loud drone, that is sounding more nihilistic and grim than anything else Sunn O))) had released to this day. I've listen to a lot of music, that is called 'extreme' and so on, but in this case it fits totally. And they deliver their brute and primitive ultra-doom very authentically, instead of just being focused on creating a tremendous unfriendly sound. The two MOSS tracks are making "Thee Bridge Ov Madness" to an extreme recommandable purchase for all fans of funeral doom or extreme fukked up doom-sludge, and I hope that MOSS will finally release their full-length. Last rumours said, that Jus Oborn from Electric Wizard is the man behind the mixing deck.......!
(KK)