Okay,
so the band name doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, and I was mostly
expecting some harsh industrial music, just because I’m a dope and the
word “Machinery” is in it. If someone played this album for me and asked
me to guess a band name based on the music I would blurt out, “Rotting
Lamentation.” As you can see, there’s a reason nobody comes to me to
name bands anymore. My last suggestion was Nuncuddle.
Trapped
Within Burning Machinery play dense, somber music that incorporates
equal parts blackened doom, trudging death, and the most sluggish
sludge. Honestly, I didn’t expect so much melody and so many gentle
moments from an album with both “stench” and “decaying” in the title. As
you can see, I judge books by their covers like it’s my god damn job,
because it occasionally is. This is one instance where the element of
surprise was very appreciated by this dreary reviewer. I’m not sure if
they have bogs in Moreno Valley, CA, but this music feels like it rose
from the muck of a long-forgotten cemetery that sunk into swamplands
long ago, and these songs are the spirits clawing their way through the
moss and algae. It’s powerful stuff, in turns heavy and harmonious, all
driven by an enormous wall of darkened guitar fuzz and the strangled,
chilling scream of Zak Esparza.
“Parasitic
Mind Decomposition” actually alarmed me a bit, as I had a friend
overcome brain surgery following an infestation of pork parasites in his
brain. It’s one of those insane ultra-metal moments that thankfully had
the happiest ending possible with his recovery, and now finally (thanks
to this band) has an official soundtrack. “Smoldering Enclave” features
thick, meaty riffs that remind me of Pungent Stench’s best work on For God Your Soul, For Me Your Flesh
before quieting the assault to a whisper during a disarmingly soft
interlude. “Industrial Snuff,” besides being an awesome title that
Shin'ya Tsukamoto should totally steal for another Tetsuo
film, was my favorite track on the album. It grooves like Eyehategod’s
bluesy sludge but if you pick the crusty scab there’s still the black
blood beneath and the core of tortured doom. Still, there are moments of
light on this album and it’s a fully textured emotional experience. The
music may sound like it’s from some godless swamp filled with the bones
of massacred families, but it’s also surrounded by lovely apple
blossoms, if you make it out of the swamp alive.
There
are a few passages that didn’t fully engage me (“Plague of Aeon’s” and
“Violent Veins” both tested my patience at times), but The Putrid Stench of Decaying Self
is still a tremendous album. If you like earthy doom like Usnea that
can block out the sun and cover the world with darkness this is most
certainly for you. Just leave yourself a breadcrumb trail if you venture
into this bog, you may not make it out again to offer more crappy band
name suggestions like I did.
Listen to The Putrid Stench of Decaying Self over on Bandcamp, available for download and CD purchase for a modest $5: http://trappedwithinburningmachinery.bandcamp.com
And follow them on Facebook, where I learned they are headed to the studio to make more music to hurt our feelings: https://www.facebook.com/trappedwithinburningmachinery
Also,
hat tip to my friend Ellie for pointing me towards this album. She
makes beautiful metal vests and could probably sell them for $500 each
if any rich kids wanna go see Coffinworm and look troo. I hope to
showcase her art on here at some point, she’s vastly talented and
recently had a (temporary) Iron Lung tattoo across her knuckles. Bad
ass.
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