Boston’s Sewer Goddess inhabit the blurry, aggressively dark space between doom metal plod and power electronics/industrial, blending those two extreme genres in a way that works flawlessly. Those two genres are not known for anything subtle, and Painlust is anything but, resulting in an album that embraces the best elements of both of those genres while managing to avoid the cliché pitfalls that are a significant problem within both.
Clocking in at six tracks and a bit under a half hour, Painlust is a tight, compact album that wastes no time in its brutality.Vocalist/programmer/composer Kristen Rose has her pieces fleshed out by a full band on this album, resulting in a disc that has a more complex, realized sound compared to their prior works.The opening song "Plague Axis" has the band at their most industrial.Droning synths and feedback are mixed with depressive synth patterns, as Rose’s screams and metallic banging sound off in the distance.There is a certain lo-fi density to the mix that calls to mind the always popular black metal production style, but the actual sound is a different matter entirely.
Sampled dialog and programmed rhythms immediately give "Black Meat and Bones" an industrial sensibility, increased by the fact that Jason Beckwith’s guitar has a vaguely Godflesh feel to it, with its barely under control feedback harmonics.The vocals are screamed and the production is appropriately big and bombastic, blending the dissonance of guitar noise with the insistent rhythms of electronics."Melena's Mask" also functions as a great hybrid of the metal and the industrial, with its prominent stabbing guitar and inhuman programmed drums.Rose’s vocals alternate between manic screams and monotone disconnect, fitting the backing music that vacillates between chaotic noise and organized music.
That laconic vocal style also appears on "My Grave," making for a stark contrast with the aggressive metal-tinged chug that the rest of the band is creating behind her.Her vocals may have more of an industrial processing tinge to them on "Flog," but the rest of the song is a dense wall of dirgy banging and detuned guitars.The loose bass guitar and massive drums of "Get the Rope" make for a similar sounding song as well, putting a doomy bed behind the megaphone shouted vocals.
With a strong mix of the death-laden din of Brighter Death Now and the mechanized grinding guitar sound of Godflesh, Painlust is a hybrid of two styles I have been quite fond of for a number of years.Even with that level of extremity and heaviness, the album never drifts into self-parody territory.The result is an extremely strong record that screams and wallows beautifully in its malignant darkness.
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