Support your local scene! Or in our post-globalized world - support your global scene! We love to do that here at Veil of Sound and as a scene is always a combination of people sharing similar tastes and ideas and when we were told to check out Pyramid Mass and their new EP “Gargling Rot” (out next week Tuesday, March 18) we did so and were soooo blown away that this review was not enough - we needed to talk to the Matt, Nic and Joey and, fortunately, all were available to talk about the EP, the way that Joey is their internal critic, how they go about composing the stuff and trimming the fat from them and more. We hope you like our little special and will check out “Gargling Rot” next week Tuesday! Enjoy!
Listening to Gargling Rot is a bit like trying to get to grips with a band that does not want to offer clues how to unravel their soundscapes. If you watch the video beneath, you will however understand that they surely know the effect of their music and how to create it.
Their music is the adrenaline rush to the head for those who like to gargle their throat raw from the inside by swallowing a load of nails from a rusty Blackened Noisecore cage first thing in the morning and who listen to some Ambient obscure Icelandic band in the evening. Those are the cornerstones of their sound and have been so, ever since they released their two earlier releases, Spewtrid and the full-length Monolith.
The opener ”Unrest” is a prime example of how heavy the band can go as the seem to go for the LLNN-method of as heavy as possible with a lot of Industrial sounds mixed with some really heavy riffs and drums. And then the second track ”Prestige” comes right around the corner and topples everything you have heard before by adding a lot of Blackened screams and it’s only then when you realize that the first track was an instrumental! The sludgey Post-Hardcore vibes are bordering on Black Metal; not that the last track ”Dissolution” is surely exactly – Black Metal!
When the third track ”Abhorrent Passage” moves into its middle passage of spherical synths combined with very shifty and fast-paced drumming – then the idea of a little breather is only interrupted by the track’s ending. All of that just before ”Spectre” with all its Ambient glory, the vast, embracing synths is a real game-changer as it shows a band that has not only a general understanding of hard-hitting Industrial Sludge but also of creating a moody interlude which fulfills multiple purposes: First of all to show a certain versatility, second to cleanse our palates and last but not least to enable the last track to hit even harder than it would usually do.
Pyramid Mass give us a great EP and one should keep an eye because with it they have shown a lot more than just heaviness, they have displayed a really deep understanding of musical contexts!
Gargling Rot and its five breathtaking tracks between Industrial and Ambient, Sludge and Neoclassical will officially be released on Tuesday March 18, and you can still pre-order the record from their Bandcamp page! Now enjoy our talk with the guys from the ever-changing Richmond Scene!
