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Mrtyu!, "Blood Tantra"
Sprawled over two discs, this album from New Zealand’s Mrtyu! is a lumbering behemoth of rumbling bass, feedback, and layers of distortion. It’s a gloriously unholy mess, suggesting subterranean rites held far from the light of day.
The first disc features three tracks, beginning with the ominous "Rites of Death in Body Temple." Heavy bass erupts below the surface while drones and feedback battle for dominance, setting the scene for the unfolding of some arcane ritual in "The Burning Ground." Industrial groans, insect-like whines, and clanging metal rattles make this the most turbulent track on the first disc, and the most engaging of the three. Purging the turmoil is "Ash on Ash," which serves as a boiling transition between events.
In contrast to the somewhat more leisurely pace of the first disc, the second disc is more immediate. While "For the Glory of the Fallen" with its dense waves of descending drones is somewhat similar to the tracks on the other disc, "Pyre" gives the bass a more obviously prominent role, its slow notes accompanied by tortured voices, swirling static, and explosive bursts. Likewise, "Digitalis" unleashes a claustrophobic attack that becomes an incendiary throb crackling on the edges of sanity. The album’s most rhythmic track is "The Wordly Skein," a heavy pulse accentuated by shredded noise. It’s not until "Durgas Blood (We Heed the Call)" that whatever fiendish entity the music’s been summoning finally erupts from its lair, attempting communication with a tongue too swollen with bile for speech.
Because the songs on both discs evoke such a similar atmospheric dread, at times they lack enough distinction to make them unique. Together, however, they are so singular in their effect that they effortlessly provoke a hypnotic fascination as darkly mesmerizing as any demonic siren’s song.
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