Review: Pitchshifter ‘Peel Sessions 1991-93’

I picked this promo up for review just before seeing the band play in the relatively close setting of Bristol. Following their official demise in 2009, the band have reunited for occasional shows, released the odd track and a book as a celebration for the fans who loved them. Indeed, the recent show was a glorious, raucous evening of semi-karaoke due to singer JS Clayden contracting a cold just as the run of dates kicked off.

I became aware of the Nottingham-based anarcho electro/industrial punks around the time of their 1996 Earache album Infotainment? and was fully onboard with the drum and bass/agit punk, Prodigy meets Sex Pistols snarl of their 1998 major label dalliance www.pitchshifter.com, even busting my nose in the pit to opening number W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G. at Ozzfest that year.

However, long before the five-piece troubled the mainstream they started life as a grimy Godflesh-style ‘death industrial’ band. Founded in 1989 by guitarist/programmer Johnny Carter and bassist Mark Clayden, the band released the terrifying Industrial album. A far cry from the frenetic band they would become, they stomped and growled with grinding, slow nightmare fuel.

Snapped up by Earache, they would release both the Submit EP and second album Desensitized in 1992 and 1993, respectively. The six tracks on display here are taken from both releases, with the favour slightly leaning toward the Submit material.

As with so many bands of the British extreme metal scene at the time, they found a willing champion in the sadly departed, legendary BBC DJ John Peel and all Pitchshifter albums include a credit of gratitude to the man who helped get their name out and give them exposure.

The Peel Session recordings came during this formative period; unearthed from the BBC Archives they have been reproduced, remastered and given new life on a variety of formats, including white vinyl and a promise of more to come as they celebrate this important step in their evolution.

Kicking off with the brutal clatter of Gritter, the programmed, insistent tapping of the drumbeat and greasy bass of Mark Claydon is joined by the squealing guitars of Carter and Stuart E. Toolin. The murky lo-fi grind of the music may have had more in common with the likes of Justin Broadricks’ titans, especially with JS’s vocals, a gravelly, guttural delivery being a far cry from his later Johnny Rotten-esque sneer. Still, the chaotic power and demonic, hard-hitting style has enough of its own identity to see why they caught Peel’s attention.

No less intense, Tendrill stalks a similar path, the crushing down-tuned thump collides with the battering percussion. Rather than the relentless march of Godflesh, Pitchshifter employs a stuttering dynamic, pulling back from the hammer blows to draw out the notes, revealing skittering beats and a lurching pace that slows and invokes a slamming feel of motion sickness.

urgent and vibrant with its violent intent…

Dry Riser Inlet concludes the first of the sessions with the most upbeat number. The riffs chug like a locomotive, and the guitars swoop and dive whilst JS spits and growls. Complete with Ministry-style lead breaks, this is the band at their most vibrant, showing that they were always destined to embrace the frantic cacophony of their later direction, rather than the granular dissection of their industrial peers and has more in common with the emerging works of White Zombie (but with infinitely better production).

By 1993, the band had tweaked its lineup. Toolin had departed, leaving Carter to handle guitars and programming while introducing D.J. Walters on percussion. Riding high on momentum, A Higher Form Of Killing (Radio Phuque Edit) starts the second side.

A menacing bass rumble and understated percussion herald a sample talking of a killing spree before the track ignites into a furious, ultra-heavy charge. Clayden roars and barks over riffs that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Prong album as the jarring, off-kilter lead snakes over the bullish, battering pace that scarcely lets up for the first half. When Pitchshifter take their foot off the pedal, the track echoes with cavernous ringing before barrelling off again, finishing with relentless intensity.

Diable (Wayco Survival Mix) is a slower, more atmospheric number with apocalyptic sampling and a deceptive groove. After the winding intro, the vocals shout, the overlapping layers colliding with each other and echoing with effects in a classic early nineties industrial sound that (thanks in part to the refreshing of the mastering) sounds urgent and vibrant with its violent intent.

The sawing, muted intro to Deconstruction (Reconstruction) ushers in the final, hulking attack. Trading machine gun-like staccato and varying the vocal delivery keeps the track rocking along in a churning gait, broken up by various instrumental breakdowns before it sinks exhausted into backwards sampling and eerie guitar notes.

Uncompromising and brutal, the Peel Sessions show the raw beating heart of the band’s early years. Fans who came later may not be familiar with the extreme jackhammer sound that laid the foundation but will recognise the distinct crunch and squealing frustrations of a band that they would lob, Molotov Cocktail-like, at the mainstream during the turn of the century.

This collection should be more than a collector’s curio; it should be held up as an example that Pitchshifter earned their stripes carving out dark, extreme music that pushed industrial music forward and breathed new life into the genre way before they were getting in trouble for using a mash-up cartoon of the Pope and the Queen on 2000’s Deviant.

Label: Cold Spring Records
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Scribed by: Mark Hunt-Bryden