Khost

Artist: 
Album Title: 
Corrosive Shroud
Release Date: 
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Distribution: 
Review Type: 

I was totally blown away when I listened to the Khost debut album last year. Copper Lock Hell must have been one of the most impressive Industrial (and I know that’s quite a ‘large’ approach) releases in many years. Check out the review undersigned did for this high-quality recording, posted on November 17th 2014.

The Birmingham-based duo Andy Swan and Damian Bennett now return with Corrosive Sound, a fifty five minutes long player that shamelessly continues the morbid, filthy, rough-edged, distorted and psychotic path once trodden by means of Copper Lock Hell. The experience opens with Avici, a composition that immediately proves that the Copper Lock Hell story wasn’t a hollow passage. A collage of haunting, shamanistic chants, ultra-brutal droning guitar layers, both massive and tribal percussions, hypnotic synth chords and minimal Industrial sampling defines the initial, and essential, core of this track – and much more to come. In some way I am experiencing the very same orgasmic feeling I used to have (and still have) when listening to Swartalf’s Candles Burning Blue. Things get even more extreme as from the next composition on, Revelations Vultures Jackals Wolves. Ultimately sulphur-breathing screams, totally distorted guitar lines, mechanical-industrial percussions and frenzy-noisy samples are combined unto a creation that defines post-apocalyptic nihilism in its mostly vile definition. Every aspect of possible sonic filthiness, yet much elements of aural beauty as well, are woven into an unworldly soundtrack that does is not meant to express love and cuteness. The tribal elements, the post-industrial aspects and the blackened grimness return time after time throughout about each single piece on Corrosive Sound. In comparison to the debut, this album might seem more cohesive, yet also less open-minded (what’s in a word) and less ecstatic, for most compositions do not come with that intense trans-dimensional funereal atmosphere that defined the first album. But what the f***! The debut was so overwhelming that it is almost impossible to etc… This material too is way beyond average, only meant for the force-hearted ones amongst us.

Imagine a funereal and morbid mixture of Empire Auriga, very early Godflesh (especially toward the end, the psycho-grinding excellence of these Englishmen comes to its peak!), Urna, Gnaw Their Tongues, Swartalf, MZ.412, Black Depths Grey Waves, Scorn and Chaos Echoes to have an idea, and still to have not…

[FYI: mastering done at the Cage Studio with Martin Bowes, very intimate with  Cold Spring Records - think Skullflower, Tunnels Of Ah, Iron Fist Of The Sun, Sol, Trepaneringsritualen and many more]

91/100