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I
usually have a big issue with recordings that feature
drum machines, but this one man misanthropic project from North
Carolina puts so much feeling into his riffs, so much
vitriol into his screams of anguish that the soulless
exactitude of the chronometric beat takes a backseat. I
am assuming that I am listening to the first song of
this debut. Vinyl these days don’t come with song
titles. Plus, what difference does it make when the
songs are simply tagged “I”, “II”, “III”…and so on.
The events
get creepier and less metal on “II”. The vibe is pure and the
spirit haunted, if by that we mean an industrialized Goblin
meets a rage-less Mayhem. The truth is Wyqm makes Mortiis sound
like Avril Lavigne. The gothic connotations are there. I usually
stay away from that too but Wyqm has a way to make it work to his
advantage. On “III” it is decided that black metal is his thing.
The speed is there and so are the hysterics. The riffs are thin
enough to decapitate a few necks with the same disturbing ease
of a metal wire.
Wyqm don’t
stop short of anything. The first half finishes off with the
sounds of battle, clear strings and a higher melody, along with
his vocals. Yeah, it could have been ridiculous. But it’s not.
The lo fi recording somehow meets the small grandiosity halfway
through the romantic horror of war.
The second
side starts off with a great riff. The atonal touch makes it
sound like someone has smeared the guitar strings with Kool Aid.
But shit gets even stranger with the slowed down moods of the
next one. I have lost count and there are only six songs in this
self-titled. Maybe is the fourth and if so, then the fifth is a
‘ballad’. If only they were made to make you miserable and
uneasy. Which come to think of it, the whole record makes you
feel like that. And for black metal, that’s just dandy.
Vinyl rules!
MySpace
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