Unearthly Trance / Ramesses – Split 10″ 2009

Unearthly Trance / Ramesses - Split 10" 2009Raise your fucking fist aloft and make the Devil sign, you down-trodden dog – show your love for the dark metal sludge of Beelzebub and his stinking screaming minions – this is your only salvation – blaze up a broad cigarette filled with dried cannabis leaf and bud, take a slug from the whisky bottle and go shit in your neighbour’s garden. Yes, it’s time to pray at the altar of amplified evil. This disc is a very timely release from Future-Noise that showcases the sheer combustive power of these two extraordinary power trios, soon to celebrate their third joint tour together. And we will be there, praying at the tiny stage, soaking up every bent tri-tone and every ear blasting thud of the kick drum.

Two exclusive tracks here on one beautiful ten inch vinyl record available via the FN website. Raise a toast to Dave and Paul for continuing to keep the flame alive for epicurean underground metal everywhere. Every fucker loves Unearthly Trance, and it’s particularly crystal clear as to why here, on this cracking nine minute epic. ‘Sabbath of Spirals’ kicks straight into business, with the frighteningly gifted Ryan Lypynsky yelling “scream in premonition” in his familiar anxiety-driven and hoarse New York hardcore yell, his intricate and awesome guitar lines deftly weaving around the shuddering rhythm section of Darren Verni (show stopping drums of both ferocious brutality and exquisite skill) and bass master Jay Newman. The actual song is about five minutes long, and gives way to noise reminiscent of a subway train grinding to a halt, which hauntingly continues past the nine minute mark. This is a great track that reveals the musical and aesthetic complexity of UT, a band who display more depth than most, often in the same track both movingly subtle and violently explosive, but always eminently listenable and oddly accessible without losing credibility (‘Electrocution’ is a case in point – a modern masterpiece of its genre). ‘Sabbath of Spirals’ is, in accordance with all UT’s work, intelligent, beautifully executed and darkly gothic without ever once straying into dull cliché – a supremely mature band who know exactly how they want to sound.

UT’s wordly and weary streetwise suss contrasts against the hedonistic dope-addled occultism of Dorset-bred doom monkeys Ramesses. ‘The Glorious Dead’ opens with the sound of lashing rain and booming thunder and the minor tones of a funereal Hammond organ, almost a tribute to early Bathory (‘Call From the Grave’?), and then suddenly the listener is nailed against the wall by a great putrid down tuned riff, and the foul and utterly fantastic demonic belching rasp of bassist Adam Richardson. Surely this man is vomiting up black ectoplasm the consistency of creosote. Sterling stuff, the kind you expect from one of the UK’s greatest living ensemble practitioners of hell-bent down tempo doom-sludge. Over muffled samples, Ramesses plough their cunningly primal and evil dirge rock into your spinning head with the mesmerising and demented will of Crowley or Rasputin. Schlock-horror metal and hugely enjoyable with it, ‘The Glorious Dead’ is a scintillating slash of a bloody blade wielded by three sick reprobates with too much time on their hands and too much dope in their veins. Gorgeous stuff that makes me want to stop working and do THIS for a living.

Label: Future Noise Recordings
Unearthly Trance: www.unearthlytrance.com
Ramesses: www.myspace.com/ramesses666

Scribed by: Adam Stone