The improvisational, instrumental noise/rock trio known as Grey Daturas, hailing from Melbourne, Australia, have been kicking around making as much noise as is humanly possible since 2001, starting out by improvising live soundtracks to 16mm film projections and then over the years notching up many live shows, supporting such acts as Sunn O))), d. Yellow Swans, Dismember, and Isis. Dead in the Woods is actually a re-release of their second album, originally appearing on the Crashing Jets label in 2004.
These three nuclear alchemists of the impending apocalypse, Bonnie Mercer, Robert McManus and Robert Mayson have, through some arcane understanding of sound, built a weapon of total musical destruction, using nothing more than the standard formula of guitar, bass, and drums. Right from the get-go, when the nuclear furnace that is the album opener "Force is a Weapon of the Weak" explodes out of the speakers in a critical mass of fuzzed out radiation and high-pitched particle feedback, the Grey Daturas make it clear in no uncertain terms that they intend to level everything in sight and to strip the flesh from bones with the bright white hot flash of their monstrous sound. The immediate aftermath of that initial explosion continues with the onslaught of "She was the Cutie of Camp Cooke," starting off with a slow bass figure that then detonates into an irresistible momentum which lays to waste anything that stands in its path; and once that momentum has been gained and attained it doesn't let up. This is the sonic equivalent of shock and awe tactics.
Then just when it feels safe to raise above the lip of the trench in the silence that follows, along comes "A Japanese Romance" to first of all lull you into a false sense of security that everything's settled down.... however that illusion is swept aside as yet another wave of noise stealthily creeps up and demolishes what's remaining. So it goes on, wave after wave; the sheer weight of controlled aggression just keeps piling up and up, over and over, unrelentingly and unremittingly. "Running Amok with Knives" and the follow on track "My Sciatica" sound like the final breakdown, when the fabric holding everything together tears at last under the pressure; there is nothing now to stop the irreversible devolution. This is what the end of the world is going to sound like; as if to emphasise this "Overdue Resignation" indisputably underlines the fact.
The strength of this album shouldn't be measured in terms of decibels but in megatonnage. I have heard many similar albums in my time, but very rarely have I come across music of such heavyweight behemoth-like proportions. It is simply gargantuan.
samples:
- She was the Cutie of Camp Cooke
- Golden Gate Blues
- Running Amok with Knives
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