Gnod – Easy To Build, Hard To Destroy

Rocket

The nouveau mediaevalism of the first track on Easy To Build, Hard To Destroy, “Elka” is a choice gem plucked for those early hippy daze where I first mentally hitched a ride on the Gnod train from the back of a dusty Trowbridge barn. A trickle of curling consciousness, leaking naturally into the latch key languid incessants of “Inner Z”, full of sweeping Moog and dazzling silver, the free-flowing vocal caged by a chordic bite and colliding colour.

It’s hot and summery and I have this on headphones, a fly lands on the page of a book I’m reading, and it walks the words in time to that steadily metered sprawl that wheels through my head in twisting spirals. Its thin insect legs obscure the letters, then scrabble-dance as the vocals levitate languidly in a weird synchronicity that plays nicely along.

Been lost in Gnod’s soundscaping numerous times over the years, and live is undoubtedly the best, something this disc captures rather effectively. Documenting the way they can pluck the best out of bloody nowhere, fluidly flex into a scenic sizzle and totally run with it, burning pretty wormholes into the roadmap as they go.

Further on in they abandon the earth mother vibes for a darker angst-ridden game-changer in a molotoved malevolent by the name of “5th Sun (Chaudelande Version)”,  a dissatisfaction succubus of gnarly barbs and exploding re-actives. A taut testimony of quaking chords and dub-driven danger that lights your head up completely. Then, just as you are recovering from that treat comes “A Very Special Request”, a quick knock-out jam for Bored Fortress, shoots more barbed candy your way. A smoother shimmering sensation than the previous track, twilighting some seriously nice riffology driving into glinting excaliburs and tasty distortion.

The distended drone spectre of “Deadbeatdisco!!! Part 1” leading to this compilation’s zenith (along with its following reprise), a buzzing magnificence of tensive shapes, powdered by a Patti Smith-like litany, all eye-liner sparkle and gigantic drums. This is a sonic density you can inhabit, get sweep up by, with its conjoined cousin furthering the thumbs up with evilling fibre and revving lathe.

For the initiated listener and newcomer alike, Easy To Build, Hard To Destroy is a rewarding compilation, whose history lesson succinctly returns you to the aesthetics of its start with the clattering glass bell shamanics of “Frostbitten”, a mystical bleed that leans into instant re-play. Almost eighty minutes of Gnod satisfaction that doesn’t disappoint.

-Michael Rodham-Heaps-