What Vulture Industries are doing may not exactly be new and groundbreaking, but it’s intriguing nonetheless. Those who are familiar with proto avant-gardists Arcturus will certainly find an instant familiarity with the sound put out by these Norwegians and there are similarities to labelmates Code as well. Now, having heard a few songs previously I sensed that the Vultures would be the kind of weirdoes I could really dig, however having not quite got around to buying the last album this is the first chance I’ve had to really see the full extent of what they have to offer.
The Malefactor’s Bloody Register is an enthralling pastiche of wild twists and sharp turns, avant-garde oddities and vaudevillian chaos. Nothing bows to convention, and this isn’t one for those who are looking for the kind of metal bands you’d find in the textbook. The album skips in with a really sinister little melody that has a distorted after-dark fairground vibe where everything seems a little, well, odd and merely a playground for ‘Crooks and Sinners.’ It really sets things up nicely for ‘Race For The Gallows’ which follows on and sees the album kick in proper. The vocals are all over the place omitting a kind of trembling, deranged warble at times coming across like an escaped lunatic giving a sermon preaching the end is nigh, before dispersing as the square, progressive rhythms are pushed out seeming like a sudden reordering between the chaos.
‘Hangman’s Hatch’ is a particular highlight for me; there’s a real intensity that comes across on the heavy verse which eases its way out as a sinuous melody slithers out on the chorus. Again, as the track progresses everything takes a rapid descent into madness with wild keyboards that have a progressive 60s vibe to them. ‘The Bolted Door’ marches with ferocity before really losing the plot and shifting into a bouncing guitar riff that really drags you in before smoothing out and suddenly I’m reminded of Glen Danzig with the bluesy vocal delivery on the chorus. It’s incredibly histrionic and not the sort of album you can easily predict what direction it’s going to take you in. Occasionally things are quite smooth and suave, the vocals certainly have a lovely baritone quality to them and the manic warbling can’t hide the velveteen texture behind the delivery. There’s something about ‘I Hung My Heart On Harrow Square’ that I find really beguiling; the guitars have a dejected feel and the repetition to them just sounds stunning beneath the impassioned vocals.
The electronic samples on ‘This Cursed Flesh’ add another slightly different angle with an almost sci-fi vibe to the intro section. I do like the way the drum beat skips along on this one, it’s got a cool groove to it and there’s something dark and intriguing about the guitars that follow. ‘Of Branded Blood’ really brings to mind ‘Brass Dogs’ by Code at one point. This one places a fast, almost thrashy and incredibly manic passage next to a dark and brooding slow section and it definitely works. The danger with such a schizophrenic album is that it could easily fall apart and sound disjointed, but this is all tightly wrapped together and just focussed enough to prevent such a calamity. I could pick out some examples of great musicianship on this album, but that would be missing the point - the main thing you need to know is that this works as a whole; it’s the atmosphere that really counts and the feeling of madness and chaos and drama that really makes this so appealing.
http://www.myspace.com/vultureindustries
