The British industrial duo Grey Wolves are one of the more provocative and controversial groups to emerge from the UK power electronics/noise scene of the 80's due to their use of fascist imagery and right-wing shock tactics that have made them a problematic band for many. Their rep nowadays has been tarnished a bit due to their continued use of questionable fascist iconography and some apparently less than stellar live performances (I've read nothing but thumbs-down reports of their recent US appearance earlier this year at the 2009 No Fun Fest), but I'm totally wowed by this new reissue of an old cassette release that Hospital has just issued. I had never heard anything from their pre-PE phase, and am loving the weird blackened ritualistic murk that these guys were doing here...

The Judgement cassette is from an earlier, less sonically assaultive version of The Grey Wolves than what I've heard on albums like Punishment and Blood And Sand, back when the band was apparently actively involved in that whole "Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth" thing. Presumably released sometime in the 80's, these two tracks are primo epics of murky black drone and minimal martial pound, both stretching beyond twenty-four minutes, the sound a murky low-fi smear of warbling bass tones, muted drums, and creepy ambience. It's strange hearing this early incarnation of the Grey Wolves sound after getting my skull nuked by the confrontational and uber-violent power electronics of their later releases, this stuff is actually pretty hypnotic, especially on the first track where they create this sludgy tribal percussion loop that runs through thick masses of minor-key organ creep, ghostly 8-bit melodies, and stumbles into patches of abrupt tape dropout and sputtering tape hiss. A super creepy occultic synthdirge. The second track is much more aggressive, with heavy locust-swarm blasts of fluttering feedback and growling distortion that gets pretty vicious as the track builds in intensity, but even here theres a throbbing rhythmic pulse buried under the grit and tape scum and chirruping feedback, and it takes on a droning, trance-inducing lock groove quality. Recommended.