The Sunken - Toasted Victims

Obscurica OB-041

1. Drowning In Blood During The Bank Robbery
2. Post Death Maze Navigation
3. Reaper's Lunch
4. Searching For An Unmarked Grave
5. Zombie Heroin (w/ Pulse Emitter)
6. You'll Go To Your Grave Because Of Me
7. Lou Ferrigno Fabric Tear
8. What It Takes To Get The Picture
9. I Don't Like Video Games

It's finally here... the long overdue Obscurica debut by this legendary assault duo from Kelso!
This disc represents a creative leap forward for this team known for inciting mosh pits at shows and causing people to spontaneously sprout devil horns. Not content with just harsh walls or full-on noise attack, this album delves deeper into subconscious, reflective uneasiness. There are of course the crushing walls of death, make no mistake.. we're talking sharp, piercing stabs of pain, and glacial, tectonic ice floe movements.. but they are punctuated with curious whirring, clicks and pops, radio voices from space, diatribe incantations from inside a cavernous steel cell, and the scraping of beetles cleaning the inside of your skull. All in all, it's a dark journey that you'll be stronger for taking. Can you take it?

FEEDBACK:

From: NOISEAR
A new offering from the label Obscurica. Toasted Victims offer a great variety of sounds here, and each track has it's own flavor. Vocal belches, PV (Power Vocals) noise, hisses, and tumbling scrapes in the background are some of the sounds you'll hear in this disc. The last track, I Don't Like Video Games, is the loudest on here and what I'd expect from this great act. All the tracks have that "live" feel to them as well. Performed live or not, idk, but it sounds like it and kudos to The Sunken if it is.
Track #3 (Reaper's Lunch) has a deep hollow push that pulls that track forward with no rest and the main sounds increase with some high pitched blasts. Very effective and one of those track that you need to listen to again because you know you missed something.
Track #5 (Zombie Heroin) features Pulse Emitter and this is a total noise wet dream come true. Soft noises and breaks sneak in the background with a heavy synth drifting throughout the track. I love it so! I've played in this territory of noise before and love this style a lot. This is a track that'll appear in my noise mixes each time now. Brilliant!
Obscurica has great packaging with some beautiful color artwork for the case and the CDr itself. My one beef is I don't see what the track titles and the artwork have in common. The artwork has Medieval pictures and tells me a story but then you read the track titles; "Lou Ferrigno Fabric Tear", and I'm stumped. It's not going keep me away from it though. Just seems odd to me to have such great artwork not follow the track titles. Good buy none-the-less.

From: Obscurica Records
When I first saw that picture of the burning bulls, for some reason it reminded me of a Sunken gig. Just two big dudes totally raging. So I used it. Suicidal Tendons agreed, and was doubly stoked because one of his primary influences for getting into noise was Caroliner, a concept based on a singing bull. A little stoner serendipity there.

From: Cracked Dome
we of the sunken make very little sense. im serious.

From: Outer Space Gamelan
Last on the docket is a band I don't know from a label I do know, and that's The Sunken's "Toasted Victims" (Obscurica) (with a great cover). I think one of the dudes from the Sunken is also in Cracked Dome, or something like that. Who the hell knows. The sounds here vary wildly: microphone and turntable abuse, guttaral and shouted vocal sounds, lo-fi groans and chiming keyboards, subterranean/cavernous bass droning, B-level horror movie SFX, and a whole slew of other things I can't bear to mention. It doesn't always click for me (I'm not so much a fan of the vocals) but when it does, it's great: "Zombie Heroin" (featuring Pulse Emitter) is the harshest Wolf Eyes tracks Wolf Eyes never wrote, "You'll Go to Your Grave Because of Me" threatens suffocation with sheet after sheet of static fury and the high-pitched noises in "Reaper's Lunch" will make you jump out of your skin, especially in contrast with the rainy ambience that starts off the track. One thing I'm not a fan of (and a personal pet peeve in anything noise-related) are the goofy track titles...the ones I listed before were good enough but "Lou Ferrigno Fabric Tear" and "I Don't Like Video Games"? Boomtown Rats for Generation Y it ain't. Nevertheless...quality release from a label who always deal in quality and/or baffling releases.

BUY IT, SUCKA!

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