Mirrors For Psychic Warfare
I SEE WHAT I BECAME
NEUROT RECORDINGS
UNDERGROUND SONIC TITANS BLAZE A PATH OF DESOLATION
WHEN IT COMES to experimental metal is there a more influential band than Neurosis? Not only does every other avant-garde band that passes through the halls of Hammer bear some form of their genetic trace, there’s a solid chance they’re also signed to their Neurot Recordings imprint. Alongside fellow Neurosis guitarist/vocalist Steve von Till, Scott Kelly has undertaken several explorative side-projects over the years, but where his counterpart’s recent Harvestman record explored pastorally mythic, ancient denizens, Scott, and sonic psychopath Sanford Parker’s Mirrors For Psychic
Warfare is a post-industrial wasteland of pulsating electronica, grating mechanisms and cold fury.
This is music as mantra, Scott captivating in his mesmeric delivery on Tomb Puncher as drums pulsate and guitars reverberate in undulating, kaleidoscopic patterns. Body Ash is an altogether more sinister experience: percussively tribal, eerie and hissing with antipathy. The slow march of Flat Rats In The Alley is beset with frantic pummelling, as Scott’s hypnotically monotonic recriminations suggest latent reserves of emotional catastrophe to be tapped. It’s akin to restrained rage, the calm before the storm. Thing Of Knives’ guitars sound like the titular blades being sharpened, the scree of metal on stone amidst combative echoes, while Crooked Teeth provides the closest thing to a catchy hook in its predatory pulse, immolated halfway through by the record’s most acrid drone.
The record’s close descends deeper into a personal hell. On the closing Coward Heat Scott repeats the desperate mantra, ‘I need your heart to pump my blood’, a yearning for the loss of loved ones dourly delivered with tragic resignation. Whereas their 2016 debut occasionally lost itself while exploring longer compositions that were more stark in their contrast between ambience and fury, I See What I Became crackles with industrial unrest while towing an emotionally impassive line, its fury replaced by resignation to the loss of hope.
FOR FANS OF: NEUROSIS, TODAY IS THE DAY, SHIBALBA
TOM O’BOYLE