REVIEW: FÓRN - S/T EP

Welcome to the first (unofficial) language lesson here at Mister Growl. Today we’re learning a few words that will assist you with appreciating some of the grimmest doom in New England. When first seeing the band name Fórn I made the sort of gut-level assumption that at best leads to ridicule and at worst leads to fatal misunderstandings. I thought that Fórn was perhaps a Celtic word meaning “forlorn,” or some other somber adjective. It’s actually an Icelandic word referring to a ceremonial sacrifice, meaning that in very specific, dangerous company, I could have accidentally been part of a tragic Wicker Man-type situation. Basically what I’m trying to say is that Fórn almost killed me.

And that was even before it came to their music, which is lethal as well. This is the sort of pitch-black funeral sludge that feels like the natural extension of the earliest days of extreme metal tape-trading, where primeval growls and heaviness seemed like they contained the most evil forces from musical history contained in a disarmingly innocent-looking cassette. Fórn has fused the ugly ambience of those recordings (without mimicking the notoriously poor sound quality) with the blackened sludge of Grief and Cough.

This two-track debut EP begins with “Coiled, Alone,” a lurching horror film of a song that even invokes the macabre slow-motion death metal of Hooded Menace before spinning off into nightmarish soundscape territory, complete with a shrieking wall of atmospheric guitar feedback and background vocals that sound like someone’s skin is being peeled like a grapefruit. The EP’s closer, “Dasein,” is a 9+ minute slab of nastiness that surprises with some killer grooves that could fit in a Bongzilla song. For those curious linguists (like me), “dasein” is a German word used extensively in Martin Heidegger’s writings regarding existential philosophy, “dasein” refers to a German phrase that means “being there,” or in other words, existing in a human capacity. For those of you looking for our one degree of separation between Peter Sellers and Boston sludge, you just found it. If another lifeform visited Earth and found “Dasein” as the lone evidence of human existence, they would likely believe that humans were massive, horned, cannibalistic creatures that trolled around bleak wastelands sucking the dried eyeballs and tongues from the deceased. Fórn play riffs so heavy they feel like they can’t be lifted from the floor, much like bands such as Winter or Conan, but with barbarity rarely this visceral. I can’t wait to hear more from this quintet, despite the music sounding like a fitting soundtrack for the mass-feeding of Christian babies to a black-tongued swamp creature. Did I type despite? Who am I kidding, anyone who has read this blog more than once knows that Christian baby buffets are pretty much my main jam.

Check out this EP over at Fórn’s Bandcamp and order one of their beautiful tapes: http://forn.bandcamp.com/album/ep

And go follow them on Facebook for news on shows and future releases: https://www.facebook.com/Forndoom

REVIEW: MOURNING CLOAK - NO VISIBLE LIGHT

Hat tip to Headfirst! Records for pointing my crusty ears in the direction of Mourning Cloak, who have one song available over on Bandcamp called “No Visible Light.” The title is apt, because this track is an ominous cloud blocking the sun, raining down charcoal dust, black mud, and infant ash on us all.

Their Facebook page refers to their music as “funeral doom/punk,” but I only hear the former in this track. But this song doesn’t sulk through the cemetery, it grooves hard enough to split the catacombs in half, releasing the crypt bats into the air. After the quickly dissipating opening ambience the guitars crawl from open graves and shake the rust off their bones with godless black-and-blues riffs. There is suck a thick layer of slime and sludge on this song that it reminds me of that barrier of grime and giant centipedes Indiana Jones’ love interest sticks her hand through in Temple of Doom. If you don’t get that reference, here it is in non-geek language: This song is nasty and unpleasant in the most sadistically delightful ways possible. The vocalist sounds like he’s plummeting into a bottomless pit, shaking hands with the devil to make a pact to finally break his fall. The song concludes with a (slightly overlong) cacophony of mayhem and sirens, which sadly just sounded like the usual Brooklyn madness outside my window, home of serial-arsonists and fisticuffs. I’m really anxious to hear more from these guys from Greensboro, NC, especially if upcoming songs mix in the punk influences they mention as well. I’m not sure if they named themselves after the butterfly species (Latin name: Nymphalis antiopa) but I did notice that the pre-butterfly larvae form looks exactly like the type of creature who would jam out to this music: Mean, dressed in black, dotted suspiciously with red stains, and covered in spikes. This is some seriously bleak stuff that fans of Bongzilla and Cough should feverishly inhale.

Listen to “No Visible Light” over at Bandcamp here: http://mourningcloaknc.bandcamp.com/

And follow them on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/mourningcloaknc