Queztolcoatl is the one man noise project of Dublin’s Timothy. All of the releases I’ve listened to from his label, Haunted Tape, are heavily indebted to anything and everything on the similarly named American Tapes run by Wolf Eyes. This holds true for The Eternal Electrical Flesh Storm. Much of the hour or so of audio could be culled from anyone of the many lacklustre Wolf Eyes releases. It sounds to me like noise done for the sake of boredom.
There is not much here to make me sit up and pay attention. Layers of looped and heavily distorted screaming combined with swathes of feedback are the central components of the album. However there is little creativity or innovation. The tracklisting is on a small scrap of paper with a font that is very American Tapes-ish, again this aping of Wolf Eyes is pretty dull and frustrating to try and read. The painted CD-R equally makes me want to shake Hurley and ask him to please, please, please consider finding some more influences.
The opener, “Wild Spiral,” is a mediocre and inoffensive attempt at noise. Noise should be vibrant and all consuming, not easily ignorable and lifeless. The production is pretty poor. While I “get” that DIY noise with cheap equipment is hip and very much in this season, it still sounds piss weak. All of the pieces are thin and tinny sounding. There is no oomph to them. I know Hurley has the ability to make a thick wall of sound as I’ve experienced one of his other projects live and I enjoyed it immensely. Quetzolcoatl did not live up to my expectations at all. Only occasionally does the noise expand to become even remotely gripping, segments in “Lost Forest Vanishing to Nowhere” and “Dead at Sea/Lost Lights” piqued my interest. Apart from these brief moments The Eternal Electrical Flesh Storm is background noise, not the type of noise Hurley was aiming for I’m guessing.
The CD-R and cheap audio equipment culture has allowed some gems to make it out into the real world that would otherwise never be heard. On the flipside, it has also allowed thousands of average (and worse) music to get out further than they should. The Eternal Electrical Flesh Storm is a prime example of a lack of quality control, not enough artists take the time to work out an album or even an EP as much as they should.
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