If ever there were an album not designed for a Sunday morning, which it naturally is as I review it foggy from last nights booze, this is it. Sunday is a time for worship, in London we have had this message thrust upon us by a visiting holier than thou man who covers up for child molesters and is a homophobic intolerant bigot with a silly pointy hat. Perhaps someone should play the latest from GTT at him and spur on his end of days, personally I think he would drop like a proverbial stone. This is nasty, horrible stuff make no mistake and naturally I absolutely love it although feel rather guilty as it is my first exposure to this project. There is little excuse really as this one man entity created by Mories from the Netherlands has a whole rake of EP’s and splits available as well as four other full length albums. I am guessing many of these are limited and on small labels and are pretty damn rare now and it is only with this album that sees Mories being signed to Candlelight here and Crucial Blast in the USA.
So how the hell to describe this album? Well I could cheat and mention a previous title which sums things up very nicely; ‘An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood.’ The album whose titular translation should not be difficult to fathom is divided into five tracks, although the word ‘masses’ seems more appropriate to me. A low tolling sound rumbles out as play is pressed and the gloom of the title track spreads like a filth ridden contagion. Ghastly choirs sweep out of the void and this instantly chills to the very core. It is like a welcome to hell and is the real stuff of nightmares, horror music from the pits, death incarnate wearing a cloak like in the final scene in Argento’s Inferno, summoning you to everlasting doom. Vocals begin to scream out the mix but with absolutely everything turned up to the max they are not overpowering but just there amidst the sprawl of everything else. The words black metal, experimental and industrial are all mentioned on the artist’s MySpace, all fair descriptions although this to me is modern classical music due to the orchestrations and symphonic feel as well as the choral parts. It certainly owes more to the experimental industrialists than it does to anything black metal that is for sure but the one band whose work this does remind me of is Elend and the suffocating violence of works such as ‘A World In Their Screams.’
There are occasional moments of stark ambience to be found here but these are oft swiped away quickly as the tumult of hollow booming cavernous percussion and strident and malevolent orchestrations swing back in. ‘Song titles’ become superfluous, this is a piece of music that has to be consumed in one, surprisingly the album is only 45 minutes in length, I guess any more may finish off the hardiest of listeners. One thing that is common with each title however is the word mort; this is very much a place where death reigns supreme.
I listen to a lot of horror film soundtracks and this album seriously goes way above and beyond anything I have heard in that respect. This is begging for a movie to accompany it and I will be playing around with films like Suspiria in the future along with this to see how it works. Somehow I think there is very little that has been made movie wise that is genuinely as terrifying as this score though and for that reason Gnaw Their Tongues really have gained my full respect and admiration. ‘L'Arrivée…. is a dark descent into hell and if you are looking for something to really unsettle this is a trip that will take you to the very limits and beyond.
http://www.myspace.com/gnawtheirtongues
