I came across this band last year when I heard a track on a Hydra Head sampler which was an extra feature on a Redemption DVD. I remember this was the one track on that sampler that really stood out and spoke to me; a real “what the fuck?” listening experience that had me on Amazon the next morning purchasing the Uczulony album. The solo work of one Gabriel S, Glaukom Synod has put out a substantial number of releases under various labels including some as self-released efforts, the most critically acclaimed being the 2007 self-released ‘Ogre’.
I couldn’t help but feel under-whelmed by The Unspeakable Horror on the first few listens, however it did eventually grow on me. The album seems to be split into three segments; tracks 1&2, tracks 4 – 8 and tracks 10 – 13, with the two in between acting as brief 14 and 22 second interludes respectively. When I listened to this as a whole I found it didn’t manage to hold my attention in quite the same way that Uczulony did; while this is certainly unhinged and very dark, it lacks that vibe of terror that I picked up on with the aforementioned album. While there is no huge stylistic change here, there does feel to be some missing ingredient however when listened to in bytes, it becomes less obvious.
‘Absoloz Omogr’ comes in with a maddening drumbeat that relentlessly tap-tap-taps away in the background while midway things kind of break up…interference…white noise…t…g…z…and into a cool hip-hop rhythm that makes you wanna pop yo’ body. The sounds that are building up on top are really rather cosmic and give off a space-age kinda vibe. I really like the way that title track ‘The Unspeakable Horror’ breezes in, lets out an electronic sigh, before breaking into some full on gabba mayhem. This is all strong and infectious if you like electronic music that is, not sure it will go down well with those looking for more traditional guitar-orientated music and as for vocals you won’t find those there! This is all more or less instrumental, with the exception of the occasional spoken voice to add to the noise-mixture.
With ‘Clouds Of Glaukomation’ they continue to make a right old din, and it all sounds rather random and a tad surreal; pressing buttons and keys, whacking pieces of metal at random…clang, clang, clang. ‘Praying Mantis’ has a kind of eerie screeching throughout. There is a kind of darkness behind ‘Seism (Cannibal Vibration Mix)’ that I notice and owwww ‘Octopulse Maniacon’ screeches out at me like nails down a bloody chalkboard. The beats here are highly danceable and one can quite easily imagine a floor swirling with vibrant UV adorned, chemically altered cybergoths dropping their bodies to this. With its heavy distortion and hypnotic repetition ‘Fertilizer’ brings things to an end and the bass really thumps out at you here. Despite being initially underwhelmed, I did gradually warm to this album and as a fan of electronic music I definitely got something out of this. It seems to be more unhinged during the first part, while the final segment comes across as more dark and perhaps trance-inducing yet definitely great music to get you moving at 2AM.
http://www.myspace.com/glaukomsynod
Luci Herbert
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