Sightings/Hrvatski, "Back to Back/Une Drôle de Journée"

Part three of nine in the Ache Div/orce split seven inch series is, aspromised, a strange meeting between two groups that are already strangeenough. Despite the juxtaposition in sound, this split made me wonderwhat the two songs might share and, unsurprisingly, it's the spirit ofthese two songs that comes across has being most common and important.Sightings' "Back to Back" is a chainsaw covered in the slime of visceraand dried blood, a typhoon of drums, cymbals, unholy feedback, anddroned out buzz dedicated to unleashing the fury locked up inside ofevery cynical eye, ear, and nose across the world. Thevocalist's unrelenting mumble-scream style manages to speak of theconfusion that the music belches out,adding to the claustrophobic and dense atmosphere. Hrvatski, on the other hand,sounds smooth; he is a drum loving, acid eating messiah of electronic,defective freak-out pandemonium and it just never gets old. His Overdriven Break Freakout Megamix stilloccupies a place in my CD player, but this track sounds like a shadowy,perverse mirror of everything on that album. His programming is aserratic and epileptic as ever, but the melodies that occupy the middleof "Une Drôle De Journée" ("The Funny of the Day") are soothing andtrippy, a day dream walk in the middle of an ignorant air raid on theworld. The music bounces and skips about with more energy and joy thana boy just laid for the very first time. Both bands are in top form onthis split and besides, with summer in full swing and the humidityraging outside, perhaps a little sweaty breakdown action is in order tokeep the blood flowing and the feet moving.

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