Man,
I feel spoiled right about now. A matter of months after I reviewed and
was mercilessly savaged by France’s UFO Gestapo and their EP debut, I’m
getting run through the meatgrinder by their second release of sloppy,
grime smattered sludge/crust.
Opting strictly for the vinyl format, Vatependr! lays waste
to mangled crust tempos, lazily drifts through lo-fi psychedelic
texturing, stomps upon the corpses of sludge’s most notorious
troublemakers and occasionally sends infected riffs to rest in an Iommi
infirmary! Even KKK’s vocals are sporting a brand new coat of anguish;
sounding akin to Jon Cox (Seven Foot Spleen, Hanging Rotten) with his
balls stuck in a vice grip. The whole affair is rendered heavier than a
ten ton tub of lard, despite the obvious lack of bass. Don’t really
matter as KKK and Sinapati tune their axes so low, it fills out any
possible empty spaces that could appear sans low-end. Finally, the now
infamous UFO microkorg and the brazen acid trip guitar soloing give
their landfill lumber an unusually, experimental edge. All cut
brilliantly to tape by UFO ally Anders Billion and his self-created
recording compound the Wasting Machine!
Take one gander at the title track and you’ll see that this isn’t your
ordinary set of riff churners. Getting us started on the same note as
the EP with an instrumental, a feeling of Among the Missing covering a
Lucio Fulci soundtrack comes to mind. Hope decayed doom/crust emits its
alien signal from some God forsaken abyss. The stew-y, twin guitar
riffage packs the gooey thickness of a three year neglected septic tank
build-up; leaving drummer Johnny UFO to wade through the stench of
dirty, d-beat pummeling. He brings those unhinged punk chops to the
forefront of the band’s snakelike riffs, as the ominous hum of alien,
microkorg noise catapults this instrumental piece into the realm of a
dingy, doom-oriented, horror film score. If slice n’ dice filmmaking
incorporated UFO Gestapo instrumental pieces into their backgrounds,
audiences would have a whole new reason to jump out of their seats.
Seriously, these dudes should contribute one of their vocal deprived
cuts to some indie filmmakers; guaranteed they’d get a lot of mileage
out of the strategy. Freaky doesn’t even describe this shit;
nightmarish is more like it.
So, now the mood has been set. The Gestapo are all about building
tension and heightening suspense before the screaming starts, making it
all the more harrowing when “Abyssopelagic Zone” hurls its bile
spitting sludge straight at your face. It’s a midnight fright fest of
unrivaled magnitude, rendering EHG virtually tame by comparison. Toxic,
slo-mo crust staggers through a landfill of forgotten riffs that have
been weathered by years of buzzing flies and pounding rain. KKK and
Sinapti mine Iommi’s magnificent simplicity, but distance themselves
from anything directly Sabbath related. The riffs are thundering and
doom-smoked for damn certain but the walls of distortion wreak of dank,
moldy basements the world over. If Dystopia were of a much, much slower
doom descent, you’ll have an idea of what to expect with the Gestapo.
KKK’s phlegm-y shrieks are about as evil as it gets for this kind of
music. Record the sound of a bag of kittens getting run over by a semi,
then increase the pitch in the studio and that’s what this motherfucker
sounds like. There’s disease and pain in his delivery unlike anything
I’ve heard in quite sometime. Flying us home on crippled wings, the
Gestapo juggernaut piles on a syrupy ooze of snail riffs and horrendous
sound effects, creating a uniformly creep-out ending.
At this point, it’s time to flip sides. You may be experiencing
symptoms of alien infestation, thus far. A well deserved trip to the
medicine cabinet might be the only break you’re up for. Grabbing a
mixed assortment of pill bottles, you empty the contents into your gut
and take a refreshing slug of your favorite hooch. Disoriented, but
slightly numb you should be ready to approach the second half of this
audio air raid. “Assault 2” is the successor of the almighty “Mercy’s
Hole” from their introductory EP. Succinct, in your fucking mug
doom/punk fills your head with dark, anti-matter particles; erasing
happy memories with an unholy level of unadulterated volume. The
grooving swagger of the riffs lacerates like a finely dulled knife
repeatedly trying to draw blood from flesh; creating just enough of a
hook to keep heads nodding in approval, but keeping far removed from
anything with a traditional boogie. In the end, the result is anything
but a clean cut, instead morphing into a festering wound seeping with
rust shavings and curdled blood! Those who even vaguely remember Seven
Foot Spleen’s Enter Therapy and its “punk on downers blues” will totally have their appetites satiated with this broken down trudge of a track.
(Read all here)
I discovered this french madmen through the last year and had a real blast with their two first records. Waiting for new stuff to come I thought I'm going to introude you to one of the craziest and best sludge bands that we have around Europe for the moment. Enjoy!
UFO Gestapo - UFO Gestapo
[ Calculon Records / 2008 / Sludge / CBR@320 ]
Tracklist
01. Landing Above (03:56)
02. UFO Gestapo (06:29)
03. Fear Weed (05:12)
04. Mercy's Hole (01:50)
05. Peace Crap (03:46)
06. Commander Mindfuck (08:31)
---
29:46
UFO Gestapo - Vatepenor
[ Streaks Records / 2008 / Sludge / CBR@320 ]
Tracklist
01. Vatepenor (05:01)
02. Abyssopelagic Zone (09:27)
03. Assault (Phase II) (01:38)
04. USO (05:49)
05. Scavanger of Death (06:15)
---
28:13
