Opponents – Psychosexual Spiritual C38
Out-of-Body Records
Opponents were founded in late 2006 in New York City by the duo of Joshua Slusher and Aaron Feinstein. In Late 2009 they were joined by Joshua Greco to form the current lineup as a trio. I’m surprised they haven’t crossed my path before as they are quite prolific and if Psychosexual Spiritual is any indication they’re sound and style is evolved and explorative.
Opponents embrace the blurred line between industrial, electronica, abstract, and psychedelic music while using all analog gear. The production quality reflects that …

156 – A Life Lived As If In Hell C30
Out-of-Body Records
156 is back with their unique brand of musique concrete industrial music. This time bringing their awkward style to the next level and truly creating an audio soundscape of the most hellish levels.
Side A combines field recordings of people screaming, yelling, coughing, maybe fucking? Who knows? With reverberating industrial junk noise sometimes forming rough looping patterns at other times just cutting in and out incessantly. There seems to be little rhyme or reason to these sounds, their main goal to …

Oneirogen – Kiasma CD
Denovali Records
Oneirogen is the project of Mario Diaz de Leon who is a classically trained guitarist based out of New York city and also composes music under his own name. Oneirogen generally features guitar-based epic drone tracks that are paired with heavy synthesizer dirges ranging from huge exploding harmonies to emotional arpeggios. Kiasma is the third effort from the project following an initial full-length and one ep.
Kiasma is an expansion on the ideas and aesthetics that de Leon had set in his previous full-length Hypnos and I …

Funerary Call – Fragments from the Aethyr CD
Crucial Blast
Fragments from the Aethyr was released in 2012 on Crucial Blast records and was the second release of the year for Funerary Call making it the project’s most prolific year since 2004. If you’re unfamiliar Funerary Call it is the project of Harlow MacFarlane who also heads the Canadian death industrial project Sistrenatus. Fragments of the Aethyr continues to the exploration of FC’s ritualistic ambience.
The sound on Fragments though is much more string-centric. With the interplays on the opening track Libation being …

LSFB – Loathsome Sounds From Beyond C20
Cathartic Process
LSFB features members of Nyarlathotep and hails from Pheonix, AR. Loathsome Sounds From Beyond contains 4 tracks. In the opener Eye of Retaliation the sounds are immediately filthy and tortured lo-fi style. Burnt-out transistors, throbbing pain waves, and frantic screaming buried in the mix all amounts to a wild array of insane noise.
The following track Honeymoon in Haiti takes things down a notch and churns out some well played death industrial elements. This time much more brooding and and atmospheric than the …

Wastelanders – I: Total Desolation C90
Calls and Correspondence
Wastelanders is a solo side project by Dean Costello, who is also active in Harpoon, Diatribes, and Winters in Osaka. This is the project’s first release which was put out in 2010.
Side A kicks off with a post-rock styled solo guitar piece with slowly rotating strummed cords spiraling into oblivion. A quick cut to some randomized and/or granulated electronic fluttery tones is a touch awkward but adds some crucial variance. My only issue with this is that the music usually only consists …

Peter J. Woods – Failure from Both Ends 7″
Curious Lacunae
Peter J. Woods the insane professor from Milwaukee, is back. In this quick album he explores different sounds and compositions but nothing that is too unfamiliar to his previous work. However the material sees him furthering his technique and vision.
Side A contains East a track that begins in a very unobtrusive way. I can’t tell if these are broken oscillators or heavily manipulated vocals but the track builds quite effectively until it has overtaken the listening space. The production is very …

Iron Fist of the Sun – Tears Royal LP
Unrest Productions
There’s something about power electronics projects that explore their own cultural attitudes, shortcomings, and gripes that just works so well. Iron Fist of the Sun is possibly the best example of this going right now. The project is quite prolific while keeping an esoteric air about itself and staying clear from the limelight. Tears Royal was actually released in 2012 – which now seems so long ago – yet this material is probably some of the best that the project has …

Human Larvae – Womb Worship CD
L.White Records
Human Larvae is an act that is anything but prolific. Since The Odour of Love – his debut release in 2008 – the Germany-based artist Daniel Burfoot has released only a handfull of material. I was very proud to help him on his first full-length endeavor Home is Where the Hurt Is which was released to critical acclaim and saw the burgeoning potential of a new artist who not only focused on song structure and evolution within the tracks, but an overarching conceptual element …

+Dog+ – Fuck Faced Failures CD
Love Earth Music
Yet another release from this prolific artist. I feel like +Dog+ is unironically trying to carve out his own nitch for terrible release artwork because the design on this disc is quite painful to the eyes. Yet the sound is more cohesive here and more effective than the last material I heard from the project.
FFF is 11 tracks in roughly 1 hour with styles falling into droning noise, or ambient noise however you’d like to phrase it. Slowly evolving tracks that are …