A brutal pairing of malice and miasmic intensity…
Review by Jason Guest
Release date: 16 January 2015
Formed in 2010, other than their first demo, Canada’s Garrotting Deep releases have thus far been splits, both surfacing in 2013. Two years on and the one-man malice machine is back with three tracks of unremittingly gruesome brutality that bludgeon, gouge, and hack at everything and anything that enters its path. An atmospheric intro of birds against a sinister synth backdrop is quickly destroyed by the barbarity that follows.
Guitars with rusty steel cables for strings, drums pummelled with sledgehammers, and a voice torn from razor-worn throat, old school death is mashed into the bloody pulp of the first two tracks. The cover of Wardruna’s ‘Heimta Thurs’ is intriguing enough, the vocals accentuating the menace of the piece, but with limited releases from the band so far, an extra original track would’ve been preferred, particularly as the quality of their material is so good.
Like Garotting Deep, Fōr have just a few releases to their name. Formed in 2013 and their first demo, Kundaz, appearing in March that same year, the tracks marked the band out as one to keep an evil eye on. Eight months later came their first EP, Blakaz Askǭ Hertô (reviewed here), and the beast that the demo had introduced appeared fully formed, the tracks dense, the atmospheres grinding, and the effect overpowering, traits that gave further flesh to the ugly fucker of a track on the 2014 split with UK’s UK’s שְׁאוֹל (She’ol).
Ominous, inhuman, and without remorse, Fōr’s three tracks for this split further tread the darkest and most sinister of paths between down-tempo drudgery and full-on face-fuckery. Miasmic and weighted with a leaden despair, the tracks are suffocating in their intensity. Enveloping and all-consuming, Fōr have again delivered the goods. What an album from this mob would be like is a terrifying thought. Soon, we hope…
8 out of 10
Track Listing:
- A Barrows Of Moss
- Garrotting Deep
- Heimta Thurs (Wardruna Cover)
- Behexed By Mortuary Chants
- Spraekjo
- Nectars Of Serpents
