This split-album entitled Operation: Enduring is rather unique, for both acts involved have something remarkable to add. When it comes to Rot In Hell, it has to do with the newly-created approach they introduced, leaving the Hardcore basement in favour of the apocalyptic Neo-Folk tradition. When it comes to Psywarfare, it deals with the first material in almost fifteen years.
Operation: Enduring opens with three Rot In Hell songs. An album like As Pearls Before Swine brought a nasty mixture of Metal, Punk and Hardcore, strongly influenced by the likes of Integrity or Ringworm (the so-called Cleveland-sound). The 2011 split-EP (Rot In Hell did tens of splits in mean time, by the way) with Horders, however, showed another side of this band, and the material on this split-collaboration with Psywarfare goes on in that very same vein. Their part might start somewhat brutal, with a noisy introduction, but after less than a minute, things calm down with quasi-sweet acoustics. It’s a Neo-Folk interpretation of Weh, Death In June or Current 93, but with a very specific, distinctive undertone. What, by the way, about the different vocal timbres used (POI and Lecky interact with soaring melodic chants versus a harsh throat). No Hippie-Folk from the happy or make-love-not-war kind of course, but without the noise-injections it would sound way too sweet, I’m afraid…
Psywarfare are a solo-project by Integrity’s Dwid Hellion. Under the moniker of Psywarfare, he released a couple of full length and mini albums during the second half of the nineties, but as from the release of Candyman, Dwid put the project to rest (to concentrate on his activities in Integrity, probably). Earlier this year, the Obscure Vanity-label released a split from Psywarfare with Spacecore-act Malware, and now they unite with Rot In Hell as official comeback-record. Once again, this stuff stands for an apocalyptic and distorted symbiosis of eclectic Death Industrial and schizophrenic Noise (Digitalised Audio Terrorism…), but without any structure. All right, Chaos does not need structured patterns to express its core, but in this case the complete cacophony does annoy me a lot. There are several projects that do better!
And this brings me to a huge question mark in my (pretty) head: what is the value of this split? Except for the mutual roots both projects share, the ‘musical’ difference is way too spacious. I am not the kind of person that allows to use narrow-minding blinkers, but when it comes to Operation: Enduring, I am confused. And that’s a pity…
Rot In Hell: 75/100
Psywarfare: 53/100