Sentient Ruin Laboratories

A short one…

Location: U.S.A. (New York City)

Type: tape (fully colored j-card, with download card) / black vinyl (poly-lined inner-bag, with download-card) / digital

Duration: 20:33 minutes

Genre: Anarcho-Hardcore / Quixotic Punk

Country (for what it’s worth): U.S.A.

Recording: Aberration: Black Dust Studio by DH

Recording: Diabolic Oath: Pale Magus Productions

Mix: Black Dust Studio by DH

Mastering: Colin Marston (Menegroth, The Thousand Caves)

Availability: 7”EP (with download card) & digital

Duration: 12:35

Cover art: Misanthropic Art (Chris Kiesling)

Genre: Morbid Death Metal

This review deals with another collaboration by two of my mostly appreciated labels, Cyclic Law and Sentient Ruin Laboratories. And… This review also deals with a collaboration of two mostly appreciated North-American projects, Sutekh Hexen and Funerary Call, respectively coming from The U.S. (California) and Canada. I won’t go into these labels’ or acts’ biography this time, yet I’d like to go into this album’s content immediately.

Hailing from New York – more specifically Poughkeepsie (ah, I adore that name, though I do not exactly know how to pronounce it decently) – 8 Hour Animal is an Industrial / Electronics act that did impress undersigned deeply with their Sentient Ruin Laboratories debut Resigner (link for the review: see below). In the meantime, this project recorded and released some more interesting stuff, and earlier this year they did also finish a new effort for Sentient Ruin Laboratories, called Kill Your Boss.

I know that Sentient Ruin Laboratories do not release catchy or poppy stuff, and once again this Californian label figuratively hits, and crushes, my (beautifully-shaped) skull with a rusty pickaxe. Resigner is the name of that rabid monster, that unleashed vehicle by one-man-army 8 Hour Animal.

Throughout more than a decade of existence, the mysterious (the members wish to remain anonymous) French act Novae Militiae has not exactly been that productive. At the very beginning, they released their debut Affliction Of The Divine (CD + digital) via Ukrainian label Nihilward Productions (re-released on tape in 2014), and in 2017 Goathorned Productions took care of the release of Gash’khalah (CD + digital).

Once in a while (often more than once in a while – aah, life is good…), you just get blown away by a debut release of a (new) act. Well, let me introduce you to German formation Voreus. Okay, this band consists of members already known from bands like Funeral Procession, Abominations, Imperceptum, The Chainsaw Demons or Fiat Nox, but that does not necessarily mean another interesting thing coming up.

Galician trio Black Earth are ‘begotten in chaos and speaking an abject language that hides the secrets of the great truth beyond the lies of the material world. Beyond the present, beyond the past. Feasting the survival of the old knowledge beyond history and the putrid path of mankind. Riding the tiger along Kali Yuga.’ It’s a mystic and mysterious introduction, offering bleak and ritualistic visions (haha, ‘visions’ and Cyclic Law in one sentence; what a coincidence) on mankind and its many imperfections and demerits.

At the very end of 2017, suddenly there was an Italian act that started terrorising our globe with a truly impressive form of Death Industrial Ambient Drone stuff. Clavicvla’s Arsonists Prophets EP was like a harsh fist in the face of the Nazarene. Even more impressive was 2018’s follow-up, Sermons, which undersigned considered (and still considers) one of the best albums within the genre from that very same year.

I used to be a devoted Death Metal fan at the end of the Eighties and during the Nineties. However, so many new bands showed up, and the better part was (and still is) crap! Okay, the very same goes for Black Metal, but the average level is, to my opinion, still much higher when talking about the latter. Within the Death Metal scene, so many fake stuff appeared, and that’s why I am quite sceptic when getting introduced to a new band.