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ALTAR OF FLIES  Trapped Under Water  CDR   (Digitalis)   8.50
Trapped Under Water IS CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE FOR ORDER

Old school electronic skzzch gets blackened again by Swedish noisemaker Mattias Gustafsson and his Altar Of Flies project. This five track CDR was

released by Digitalis last year in a limited edition of 100 copies, and it's packaged in a color sleeve with artwork that depicts a demons skull exploding in

a psychedelic flurry of bats, skulls, ghosts, ghetto blasters, and serpents. This is only the second release from Altar Of Flies that I've picked up (the

first being the super limited cassette tape that came out on Epicene Sound over a year ago), but the project is so far pretty consistent in delivering an

evil, ghoulish form of industrial that sounds kind of like a satanic Wolf Eyes. Each one of the tracks on Trapped Under Water has this ominous, evil

feel, but the approach is varied, too...minimal buzzing tones and nauseous drum beats meet snarling vocal mantras one moment, and then flow into curtains of

black hiss and metallic drone. Bells are struck over washes of shimmering cymbal noise and grinding low-end doomdrone guitar buzz. Watery melodies can be

heard, blurred and indistinct, deep beneath layers of distortion and rumbling feedback. Chirping oscillator tones get bent and mangled, then obliterated by

spikes of razor sharp high-end skree. Modulated metallic powerchords are strummed and stretched apart over broken drumbeats, and there are hints of both

Throbbing Gristle and old Broken Flag power electronics in Altar Of Flies blackened pulses. A solid set of creepy, damaged electronic sludge!