Gnaw Their Tongues & Alkerdeel – Dyodyo Asema

Consouling Sounds

Joining together for a 19-minute epic on a single side of vinyl (also available as an all-black CD), the skin-crawling, crepuscular misanthropy of Netherlander Mories de Jong meets grim Belgian band Alkerdeel‘s doomy experimental black metal in dark celebration of Counsouling Sounds‘ fifth birthday.

What a slathering, slavering beast it turns out to be, comprehensively bringing the low end shuddering up from the depths of the Low Countries, riding in on a mordant tide of bass groan and visceral, extirpated vocals which almost reek audibly of the foetid odour of the grave – synaesthesia being perhaps not such a welcome attribute when listening to music of this particularly macabre stripe. It almost goes without saying that “Dyodyo Asema” needs the maximum volume possible to fully appreciate the magnitude of its crushing blast beats and Rhys Chatham/Glen Branca levels of choral guitars deployed seemingly en masse. It strives to overwhelm the senses and batter the poor listener with all that is malevolent, sick and twisted in the world, summed up in percussion which bruises and words which audibly signify nothing comprehensible to the non-daemonic but which still convey all the anguish, ire and vileness imaginable.

The dynamics extend and develop upon the the familiar black metal template of loud/rising assault/louder/yells/still louder/groans/fade, but the combined might of the heavyweights involved shovel their cumulative techniques of symphonic audio torture into an all-conquering racket with the steadfast muscular energy of stokers keeping a mighty boiler fed (with decaying corpses, no doubt) until it emits a glowing, infernal energy. Chuck in splurges of cavernously resonating explosions, frantic neighing horses, ominous tocsins and demented demonic burbling for the grand finale, and it’s only right and improper to ask – demand, even – that Alkerdeel and Gnaw Their Tongues vomit forth yet more unholy noise together. Barring the end of days intervening in the beforehand, of course; then they’d just have to work together in hell.

-Antron S. Meister-