The Batlord

I've heard the name, but otherwise I have no idea who these dudes are or what they play. Here goes...


1. "Cold" 23:37: More long-as-**** songs. Goody. So it that supposed to sound like a train or something? Oh, here we go I guess. Repetitive something or other.

Is this industrial? I don't listen to enough of it to be able to recognize it by myself. The genre is just too varied for easy categorization.

Just a looped beat, too fast and relentless to be anything resembling dance music, and those other noises are just creepy: what sounds like a heart monitor going into cardiac arrest, other stuff that I'm forgetting, screechy... screechiness. I am intrigued.

It's like each different sound by itself is minimalist, but thrown together they're occasionally just dissonant. I feel like this is what Suicide would have sounded like if they'd been around when the technology had progressed to a point where they could do more than just loop simple synths. Or what Throbbing Gristle would sound like if they decided to be Suicide.

Random dog bark!

The way that beat is now pulsing in one ear and then the other feels like it would throw off my equilibrium if I were trying to walk. Very cool.

And now it has this mechanical rhythm, along with the kind of power tools on sheet metal sound that I associate with Einsturzende Neubauten (just spelled that without any help!). Again, very cool.

I've just been letting the song play out while engaging in a rousing bout of Solitaire, but before the song ends, I'd just like to dig on the mechanical weirdness of this entire song. It's played the same beat for much of its length, and it's made the whole thing feel cohesive, so that all the bizarre sound deviations didn't come off as random and tedious.

Not all of the song has this beat, and when it changes track, it's refreshing, keeping the track from becoming monotonous, even if it's in many ways minimalist. Nice.

2. "Colder Still" 32:45: That tuba blast, or whatever sound is masquerading as a tuba's evil cousin, at the beginning was just malevolent. I'm guessing this is going to be a bit more malevolent than the previous track. The ambient... feedback(?), and background laughing is reminding me of a more busy Lustmord, which is, again, cool.

This **** sounds like it would be awesome while reading "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream". For some reason that's one of my barometers for creepy ambient music.

WTF? It's all quiet and ****, but there's this really ugly, loud group of effects going on that sound like an alien predator eating its prey alive. The tuba(?) blare right at the end is what I assume to be the killing blow. Bitchin'.

Spoken word? It's too Irish and ****ed up sounding to make out what the two voices are saying, but it's pretty creepy sounding. Wouldn't want to listen to on acid.

Only a few more minutes left in the track, but I haven't had much else to say about it. How long can I go on about a thirty minute song anyways? It's been some pretty righteous dark ambient(?), with some weird twists and turns to keep it from being just ambient, and... yeah. See you at the other side of the end.

3. "Cold (Miss Ticker Mix)" 6:05: I was going to skip reviewing the bonus track, and just listen to it as I was summing up the rest, but it's sounding too cool to ignore. It's sounds many of the busiest, most aggressive moments of the album compressed over that hateful, nihilistic beat from the first song. It's pretty relentless, and I'd like to murder someone in a serial killer-like fashion while listening to it. You've been warned.


Alright, and we're done. I honestly don't listen to enough industrial or ambient to be able to say I'll be putting this on regular rotation, and I'd have to be in different moods for either track, as they're so different from each other, but if I'm ever in the mood, then this is going to be a top choice, and I'll probably check some of this dude's other **** out at some point as well.

Final verdict:


/10

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bob.

Steve Stapleton is a God among men.....in all honesty i actually think you would enjoy his first album....Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella

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A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism.

Reach out, pierce the fine fabric of the sheltering sky, take repose.

Trollheart

Is that not the title of the new WISK album?

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

grindy

Must...resist...writing something...snobbish and condescending...about the origins...of that phrase...and how people should know it.
I'm better now.

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A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.

Josef K

Have you heard Sonic Youth - SYR 4?

Frownland

Hmm I think he'll hate Hidros 3 more.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

The Batlord

I have not.

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Josef K

Maybe, but it isn't as good and they're both pretty out there.
You should add it then.

The Batlord

Alright, be honest, dude. You didn't have anything to actually use for a cover, so you just took a tilted pic of some house and hoped people would assume it was artistic or some ****, didn't you? You can be honest with Ol' Batlord.

Seriously, though. If that's the best you can do, then just steal something off the internet and pass it off as your own. It would be the lesser of two evils.


1. "on the mountain" 10:13: So, are capital letters too mainstream or something? Anyways, just to let you know, up until... now, I've been listening to Ke$ha. So, just know that unless you wow me, I'll be thinking about listening to Ke$ha instead. I hope that eats at you.

So. Feedback. Drone. Basement production. Holy ****! Vocals! Wasn't expecting that.

Sorry, broham. This sounds like an awful indie folk singer playing boring black metal or shoegaze (doesn't matter which) at half the speed of smell. Thinking about Ke$ha.

You know she's suing both her producer/manager/whatever and her record label? Like, apparently there are some sexual assault charges. The manager drugged her or something, and this **** had been going on for years, and she's suing her label for basically letting all this go on and looking the other way. I don't exactly know all the specifics, cause I only learned about it yesterday, but **** sounds ****ed up. I'm worried about what it'll mean for her new album, since she's suing her record label and all.

Only a couple minutes left with the song. Still bored. Hoped I could ride it out with Ke$ha gossip, but alas, tis not to be.

Thank god. It's over.

2. "just wanna fall asleep" 26:21: Son of a bitch. Twenty-six minutes? Really? Do you want me to do to you what I did to Frownland? Cause it's probably about to happen. Unless I can find more **** to say about Ke$ha of course, cause I think that would be far more insulting than just trashing your boring music.

Alright, this is a lot more interesting than your last- PSYCHE!!! Snooze.

Apparently Ke$ha just sold her house for 1.8 million dollars. Looks pretty nice too. Made $200,000 profit, so I guess that's nice. I'm assuming she's having money trouble though, since she hasn't released anything in three years and is suing everybody now.

Singer-songwriter Kesha finds a buyer for her Venice bungalow

Yeah, your ****'s still boring BTW. Still just a bunch of lo-fi feedback, but thank god you stopped singing. So, back to Ke$ha...

Damn, her producer, Dr. Luke (not a real doctor), sounds like a ****ing ****. Not only did he allegedly rape her, but he's filed a counter-suit for defamation of character.

God damn it, you're singing again. Song isn't even halfway over.

You should change the background color of your Bandcamp page, too. There's a bunch of black text against a dark-as-**** grey background, and it makes some of it really hard to read.

You should also consider making your project instrumental only.

Now you're switching to straight indie folk? Wut.

Were you just banging on a desk?

God damn it, still nine minutes to go. This is like listening to pubes having obnoxiously loud sex, but you can tell they're faking, so it's just loud and annoying without being hot.

****, man. Apparently Ke$ha was in rehab last year for bulimia. Sucks. I don't know which would be worse to have: that or anorexia? I mean, at least you get to eat with bulimia, but then it ****s up your throat. And if you eat in public, then you have to go use some nasty public toilet, but I guess if you're a millionaire like Ke$ha then you're probably going to be eating at places with nice toilets. The kind of places where they're used to models throwing up in their bathrooms and then snorting coke off the toilet lids. That's class.

Almost done. The next two songs are only eleven minutes long total, so I guess this won't be so bad. I'm pretty much out of Ke$ha news though.

3. "sounds of industry" 06:21: That percussion is probably the best thing about this album so far. Nice reverb on that ****. Don't ruin it by singing.

Is that piano? Just a keyboard or something? Guitar that sounds like keys somehow? Either way, bored.


Can't wait to blast that **** when this is over.

4. "give me the phone back" 05:08: We both know that's not a real song title.

Just waiting this boring **** out now. At least you haven't tried singing since that long ass twenty-six minute screwdriver-in-the-eye fest.

Thirty seconds. **** yes.

Done. Dude, you suck. Like, vacuum cleaners ain't got **** kinda suction on you. I'm glad I gave you ICP to listen to you in your thread. Maybe you can pick some pointers up from them. And you should never, ever sing again. At least not until your voice cracks.

Final verdict:

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Goofle

Have you enjoyed an album that was sent your way yet?

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