Locrian – Territories LP (At War with False Noise/Basses Frequences/Small Doses/BloodLust!)
Chicago-based bad vibe outfit Locrian has been kicking around the primordial, sidelong growing-evil threat thing for a while now, and are starting to unify their stance across separate genres of metal and dark electronics. There’s a few songs in here (like the opener “Inverted Ruins”) that ought to be where these guys decide to head out to, finally – it’s slow, tortured, brutal evidence of deadly sins crawlin’ out of the ground, layering low industrial drone with piercing electronics, death-march drumming and the miserable howls of Bloodyminded’s Mark Solotroff. Elsewhere, they lean into masterful dark drone, and they close both sides of this LP with straight-ahead black metal. The drone works – that’s where this group comes from – but the USBM is so common, and often so not exciting, that even these competent examples draw away from the nastiness this group has already generated. A mixed bag where the hits are awesome and the rest is just OK. (http://www.atwarwithfalsenoise.com) (http://www.bassesfrequences.com) (http://small-doses.com) (http://bloodlust.blogspot.com)
(Doug Mosurock)
