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Coil, "Live Four"
Coil is easily playing some of their most haunting, spectral, hypnotic, and sublime material ever, combining the new with the old and doing so without the outcome sounding muddled or too disparate.Threshold House
The cohesiveness of the album is achieved in a couple of ways: "Last Rites of Spring" gets overhauled completely and extended into a 10 minute noise-fest. "Amethyst Deceivers" and "Ostia" are altered in small ways that result in a new sound but retain the spirit of the original. "Are You Shivering?" is the perfect misnomer; its glowing tones and soft, simple drum part are the perfect warm blanket. The firey, yet cleansing attack of "A Warning From the Sun," on the other hand, with its scratching and violent pandemonium easily reduced my brain to rubble and at the same time soothed it by way of whimsical melody. The extra treats, however, are three of the previously unreleased songs. "The Universe Is A Haunted House" begins with quiet echoing synths, water leaking from ceilings, and absolutely threatening promises of mischief from Jhon Balance. It later turns into a rhythm propelled freak-out session of LSD-like proportions. "Bang Bang (Sonny Bono)" is, strangely enough, a cover of a Cher tune. It is composed of piano, Balance's singing, and patches of serpentine glitchery that slither in and out of the air. It's also the closest Coil has ever come to performing a ballad. The album ends on a very high and exhilirating note with "An Unearthly Red." Here an explosive Balance screams and shouts over dissonant and jarring rhythms while fits of ecstatic decomposition bounce and detonate everywhere without remorse. Melody battles against a wall of distortion and tension builds and builds to a boiling point that just might make you sweat; this is one hell of a way to end a record. At this point I've almost completely forgotten that this is a live recording because the quality of the sound and the songs are so absolutely fantastic. Go buy this album, turn out the lights, turn on this record, and prepare to have your ears and mind blown away. 
