BLACK COBRA
Feather & Stone
(At a Loss)

GRAVE IN THE SKY
Cutlery Hits China: English
for the Hearing Impaired
(Heart & Crossbone)

GHOSTLIMB
S/T
(Self-Released)

THE PLIGHT
Black Summer
(Visible Noise)

NADJA
Radiance of Shadows
(Alien 8)

OBSTRUKTOR
Dead On Arrival 

(Self-Released)

MARBLEBOG
Forestheart

(Autopsy Kitchen)

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Absolutely agonizing stuff. This last recording of Israel’s  carnage purveyors Grave in the Sky (not to be confused with Arizona’s doomsters Graves at Sea, I know I did) truly conveys some of the most skin peeling, heart-wrenching, blood boiling, nail clipping, skull fucking, hair-brushing, meat cutting, pizza-slicing feelings out there. And I mean this is deranged stuff; so extremely painful indeed I feel a bit dirtier for having listened to it. A bit like someone with dozens of rotten skeletons in his closet; a lot like someone whose innards have been filled with proverbial despair, a ton like someone who’s on his last walk to sure doom. And motherfucking doom this is: opening slice of tragedy “Donnie Darko” ignores all the humorous movie parts that so inspired it and offers up instead an excruciating lethargic pace. It’s over eight minutes of repeated earth shaking; a bottomless nightmare of mastodonic proportions.  

Special mention should go to Israeli electronic artist and producer Maor Appelbaum, who handles the bass, noise and effects duties, and damn if that’s not the most affecting bass sound I’ve heard all year. It almost sounds psychedelic or echo-laden, like it’s on repeat or stuck on static. Furthermore, “The Descent” is even more psychedelic and surreal. This is how imagine being inside a frog would be like; uncomfortably warm and utterly disgusting. Honoring its title as the song evolves, it gets more cavernous and darker, not so much the music but that’s the feeling one gets from listening to about seven minutes of mind-boggling distortion, feedback, and drone.

“Straw Dogs”, is named after the Peckinpah classic in which pint size Dudley Moore… I mean Dustin Hoffman goes to the English countryside and confronts some sick maniacs.  This song, if you can call it that (and I mean that in a good way), takes things even further, with the drowned out screams of vocalist Rani Zagler is literally a brain fryer.  The music bounces and clashes in chaotic fashion, its energy getting pulled form blank spaces. The last half of its lengthy twelve minutes basically serve for the music to slowly vanish. From what I read, the lyrics are literal readings of some of the lines from the movies referenced in the song titles. Hard to tell as Rani Zager is distorted to full effect.

“The Devil’s Rejects” does a bit more damage with more threatening vocals and the same formula of clashing cymbals, drones and funeral doom paced drums. If this is the first cut you’ve heard all day you won’t need any coffee for a month, but if you’ve already been punished by any of the previous four songs, this is hardly any better. Grave in the Sky’s sound is so intense, it can easily become too much. Cutlery Hits China ends with “Scum”, needless to say another noisy and anarchic affair. Pretty intense stuff.

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