Devillock - Righteous Blood/Dead Cult [chondritic sound]

I have no idea if there are any regular readers lurking here, but if so then apologies for the unannounced absence. Last week I was busy with other things, and needed a break from this, partly because my descriptive faculties were straining at the tape-a-day rate, not to mention my bank account. Anyhow back on track now and should be posting a review most days for next couple of weeks.

Double C32 cassette (whose fragile double-width box seems to fall apart every time I so much as look as it) with nice collaged artwork of gothic illuminations and tombstone rubbings. Devillock and Hive Mind have been inextricable in my mind since both putting out records on Tone Filth a couple of years back that both touched the same nerve. Four more sides of eerie analogue synth abuse await us here. The A side of Righteous Blood is a particularly haunted house, poltergeist-activated doors creak, and furniture is dragged and thrown while wisps of shrill feedback ring out piercingly, echoing slowly through rooms and out into the ether. Unruly spirits shriek replies and the cold wind drifts by, causing the chimney pots to hum gently. Each event seems to rattle around the empty house, before finding a nook or alcove to vanish into. It’s a empty and inhuman scene, but a subtly handled composition, with a deft application of dynamics throughout. The B side is a more straightforward drone affair, tones rising and falling, leaping out of control and wrenched back under.

If the first slice of Righteous Blood evoked a Hammer Horror castle then side C, the opening of Dead Cult is all ghost-in-the-machine. Starting out with spooked ground hum, and blips of licked circuits. If anyone’s seen the YouTube video of open-circuit worms, then this is the sound of an octopus let loose of a considerably more beefy bit of circuitry. The synth sounds as if it’s guts have been poured onto the table and is being worked by wet tentacles. When the ground hum evaporates, space opens up leaving hollow tones to wail over a scattering of loose connections which fizz and crackle gently. From here the piece swerves through sudden scattershot moments of epileptic electronics and semi-harsh ground hum before fizzling out. The final side begins across similar territory albeit in a heavier vein, an added lick of fuzz to the preceedings of the previous side, Just before halfway the actions recede and are merged into a dissonant drone, which growls on as sharp edged tones are flung into the mix. When these are suddenly cut out the vacuum is filled with a soft warm chord, around which one of the best sections of the whole pack groups, as dynamically satisfying as the A side, and with perhaps more timbral variation, there’s an unpredictability here which is great, no single trick is allowed to dominate, some sounds are modulated gently, others chopped in and out roughly.

With an hour of music across the two tapes this is definitely worth the asking price, if you can still find it, and if not you can always nick it from here.