Nice. Here we have over an hour's worth of crushing Swedish death industrial/power electronics from Jonas Lindgren (also known for his work as Maim) in 12 tracks that average around five minutes each and never shed a strong sense of atmosphere in their assaults of raw distorted noise and heavily treated vocals. Most of the tracks are on the muddy side and tend to follow the staples of the genre with thick layers of repetitious noise and straightforward vocal arrangements depicting bleak and bitter views, though thankfully the lyrical content here is far more interesting and mature than the usual doses of chauvinistic violence or politically sketchy nonsense often associated with the style, as proved by lines such as, "You pay such attention to all these minor events and trivialities, You make connections between the mundane and the obliteratingly dull, The grey patterns that scar your inner life with invariable shades of grey upon grey upon grey upon grey are forever repeated in the saggy, shriveled lines that mark your pathetic face..." But the music isn't a totally generic and one-sided attack by any means. While the first few cuts are certainly rather harsh and straightforward (but not without atmospheric elements to provide some feeling), "Though We Are in the Bowels of Hell, We Shall Have the Eyes of Angels" opens with a more rhythmic set of sparse percussive loops that lets the reverberated and pitch-shifted vocals have a little more room to move around; but it's tracks like "The Gallows", which is devoid of vocals, that really start to change things up with throbbing ambient currents and waves of moody distorted crunches over obscured samples and background textures. "I Was Born to Murder the World" is one of the loudest and harshest pieces herein, so much so that it's almost impossible to make out the fact that vocals are present at all; whereas "Self-Immolation (Version II)" highlights some cool vocal layering over a rather subdued dark ambient base. "Shattered Angel" is another of the louder pieces, but its use of eerie, almost "melodic" undercurrents to back the distortion adds an interesting dynamic to the piece that doesn't pop up very often elsewhere; while closer "The Braquemard" uses some of the more atypical synth vibrations and strange textural surges underneath the gritty distortion and vocals. As far as the muddiness of the recording goes, I think that aesthetic fits and is generally handled well, but it certainly wouldn't hurt for a little more clarity to be provided in some ways, as a few of the denser compositions can start to suffer when so many details get shuffled aside within the massive walls of total noise. The CD-R comes in a DVD case with a black and white cover that honestly leaves a little to be desired when you take into account the generally strong aesthetic associated with the power electronics genre. It looks okay, but the imagery and rather bland text simply aren't very interesting or artistic, so... from a visual standpoint the project could stand to achieve a stronger presentation that would better suit the strengths of the music. The inside of the case contains a hand-numbered insert, and the release is limited to only 200 copies. I'm not sure how many remain available, but I would imagine you can still get your hands on one for the moment, and you might as well do so now, as with the lack of solid power electronics outfits out there these days, once this stuff catches on, you might not have such an easy time tracking down these limited edition runs. I think this disc's a bit long, there are a handful of tracks that seem redundant or less powerful, and a nine-track/45-minute jaunt probably would've been more efficient, but I'll certainly be curious to see where M?rkerm?nnen heads down the road.
[Blunt Object]
Running time - 63:31, Tracks: 12
[Notable tracks: Hunting Ground, The Gallows, Self-Immolation (Version II), The Braquemard]
Blunt Object Records - http://www.borecords.com
