This version of hell is spat straight out the industrial wastelands of London and the South East Of England, a place where concrete erodes and splits as traffic trundles over it, a place of imposing tower blocks, prisons of building blocks and the ever reaching eye of the camera watching all that goes on, a place of hate and dread. I enjoyed Concrete Lung’s EP Waste Of Flesh and it seems like the outfit has been quick to follow up on this with a full length album giving us a bit more of an insight into their nightmarish world and their mechanical craft.
As we enter ‘The Outer Circle’ after the clanking ‘Intravenous IV’ acts as an apocalyptic, bristling and pulverising intro we seethe into a futuristic and mechanical rhythmic thrust. This is an unrelenting march bolstered by the warped vocals of singer Ed Oxine. The drum battery is particularly effective and the music is littered by really meaty blows. Both Ed and William Riever provide percussion and they go about it in style reminding me of everyone from Leech Woman to Pigface with the tribal beat. Musically here it is not difficult to name the greats and this is a good mix of Ministry, Godflesh and Bile all mangled together and wrapped up in Concrete Lungs indomitable style. ‘Suicide High Rise’ rushes off in a bouncy tumult although if you acted out the song the last thing you are likely to do is bounce. Thankfully the band are far from falling flat on their face as they deliver a technological urban hell which ends in a coruscating wreckage of its own flesh. ‘Life Down’ races off like a mental arcade driving game where the aim is to kill and run over as many people as you can. It has an upbeat club stomp and takes no prisoners and so far the album has been fast furious and full on and this was the way I expected it to continue all the way through.
However things slow for ‘Mind Eraser’ which has a Big Black, Albini type beat brooding away alongside skewed guitars, as the vocals come in and it builds up I am reminded a fair bit of Nailbomb too and the band are certainly hitting all the right buttons. We do slow towards the end after a few more pummelling numbers and I really love the slow austere majesty of the atmospherically entitled ‘Pylon Kingdom (Pt 1).’ It has a really sombre choral part to it alongside the hefty slow drum hits and borders on a martial style. We chill out from there as ‘Dead In The Mind’ is acoustic guitar and moody saxophone over whispered vocals showing that the project has more ideas than simply hitting everything hard for maximum effect. Mind you when they do that, they do it well too and this is a good album that any fan of industrial should certainly check out.
http://www.myspace.com/concretelung
