Big Naturals & Anthroprophh – S/T
Subsumed previously under former Heads guitarist Paul Allen’s tongue-twisting project Anthroprophh, Jesse Webb (drums) and Gareth Turner (bass) of punishing noise-rock duo Big Naturals, have been promoted to share full credits on this latest release. Side A – a 21 minute stream of ever-intensifying kosmiche muscle – is nominally attributed to Webb and Turner, B’s three tracks to Allen, but this is a collaboration in the fullest sense nonetheless.
Getting the party started, “God-Shaped Hole” sounds like Swans making space-rock, its chatter of electronic effects and menacing synth drones rubbing shoulders with solemn drum motorik and heavy-as-hell, near-metal bass riffs that are thrillingly distorted all the way out to doom sludge. Piercing interference functions like a tractor beam amidst a vaguely Eastern groove, the epic track zoning in and out of focus until it collapses under its own super-massive gravity leaving only radiated electromagnetic noise and cosmic microwaves in its wake. On the flip, the wildly experimental “Farce Without End” starts equally heavily with a torrent of black sludge, its synth wavering like a snake charmer’s bansuri before erupting into atom-smashing proportions. Tipped over the edge, it’s a track that then quickly descends into brutal black-jazz and coruscating blasts of noise, improv keys leading into passages of blown-out static.
Next up, “Narwhallian Social Purge” intercepts multiple hardrock channels simultaneously and plays them all in fast forward over high-flying engine drones and insane FX while a vocal tries and fails to make sense of the scrambled, garbled mess. Finally, as the LP comes to a closing crescendo, Webb’s attacking drums put an end to minimal drones in the doomed “Chubbuck’s Last Tape (Another Nail)”, the tempo steadily ramping up until we’re caught in another ferocious flow of Eastern-flecked noise – a locked groove suffocating the album’s final bars like some nightmarish succubus. It’s an album that feels like a work out; you’re left sweaty and breathless by its sheer mass. Therefore a public health warning: don’t forget to limber up before you start spinning. A disclaimer too: we won’t be held responsible for the results if you don’t.
~Big Naturals & Anthroprophh will be released 8th July 2016 via Cardinal Fuzz.~