Experimental Music At Its Most Experimental
This is an extremely hard recording to review.
I suppose it falls under the ‘experimental’ category. Minutes at a time are filled with abstract noises and eerie atmospherics. When it finally breaks into the music itself, it’s loud, brash, and downright hard to listen to. Rhythms are complex verging on random, guitars seem to have more distortion than technically possible, and the screeched vocals would send a shiver down anyone’s spine.
In a way, the ambient sections of – deep breath – 'This Decaying Schizophrenic Christ Complex: Risk#3' are more impressive than the music itself. Track 5, '1inchstabwound', is just scary, with its young girl’s voice monotonously reciting the lyrics. That’s one certain quality of this album: its ability to unsettle, to disturb and to upset. I’ve got to say, any music that’s capable of that must be pretty powerful.
Track 7, 'eclecticpowderburn', is a particularly notable eleven minutes, featuring a four-minute conversation about the apocalypse and how it will come about. It’s actually quite interesting, and the growling, fuzzy backing to it creates a fantastically dark mood.
'This Decaying…' was initially released nearly six years ago. Even now, remastered and re-released, it’s an album completely unlike the vast majority of similar recordings. More than half a decade post-release, it still sounds way ahead of its time. Koreisch produce a sort of sound you might expect the metal genre to take in another twenty years, not in 1998.
Of course, I’m delaying a summary now. Is 'This Decaying…' a good CD?
I don’t know.
Oh, goodness, I know, that’s a horrible conclusion to draw, but that’s the only one I can reach even after extensive listening. It sounds horrible – there really is no other description – but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If its attempt is to be one of the most unsettling and horrendously dark albums ever released, it succeeds with flying colours. Still, at times it’s simply impossible to distinguish between songs: at heart it’s an hour-long roar of noise. If you like your music seriously heavy and seriously experimental, then you could get a bit of a kick out of this. Even if not, it’s still worth a listen, because it’s not hard to appreciate what these guys have created. But appreciation isn’t the same as liking something, and that’s where 'This Decaying…' falls down.