Rising from the wreckage of the excellent (if largely expunged, unfortunately) Teeth Engraved With the Names of the Dead, Philadelphia, PA's Rusteater has now made its official debut with a six-song, nearly 36-minute demo of equally impressive dark ambient/death industrial explorations. I must say that I'm quite pleased to see these tracks come together for public consumption relatively quickly—perhaps a bit more organically and "on the fly," as the Live Demos heading might suggest.
A touch more stripped down and restrained than some of Teeth Engraved's efforts (at least on the surface), the material is no less effective in its delivery of masterfully foreboding atmospheres through the implementation of ominous drones, piercing feedback, crispy distortion, clanking scrap metal reverberations, hypnotically subdued percussion, or the occasional dose of fire-eyed vocalizations (most notably amidst the unexpected cover of Nausea's "Extinction"). A top-shelf listen through and through, it's the somberness of the melodic attributes of fitting closer "Drawn Into the Eclipse" that spoke to me the most.
Hyper-critical musicians known to add, subtract, or completely obliterate recordings from Bandcamp with little warning, it's likely that this set of Rusteater's tunes will stay put for some time. However, if you're intrigued enough to purchase, download, or stream, you'd be encouraged to do so while you still can... just in case!
