It's always sad to see a great band break up. Late 2010 saw the unfortunate demise of The Endless Blockade, one of modern powerviolence's most impressive and musically mature/developed bands(In Disgust and Thousandswilldie also broke up that year, endless bummer). This split with Pig Heart Transplant is their final goodbye, their swan song release, which will probably be a big deal to a lot of people, and be judged under that context. Going into it I expected TEB's contribution to be on the noisey side, given who their sharing this split with. Pig Heart Transplant(the noise project of Jon Kortland, the guitarist/vocalist for Iron Lung) give us a 3-part-mini-epic of droning noise with vocals and percussion thrown in. This is my first exposure to PHT and I have to say I was dreadfully unimpressed. I appreciate noise music, but this just did nothing for me. The piece just kinda stayed in build-up mode but didn't actually climax to anything. Sonically, it was unimpressive to. There was an early Swans vibe, but I feel that the 4 1/2 minute time limit PHT was stuck to hindered the song from developing more. So already half of the split left me unimpressed. The Endless Blockade's side is almost definitely left over material from a previous recording, possibly from the "Primitive" album. Only two songs from them, one being noise, and the "lead" track being a mid-tempo sludge dirge. Many, including myself, will be a bit let down by the lack of fast tempos. But looking at it again, it feels like the last song to any one of their albums; the slow climax after a career's span of fast songs. Unfortunately, it's not a very good one. After listening to it a few times, I still have a hard time remembering the song, it's just anti-climactic. I feel like the excellent 14 minute epic "Deuteronomy" from "The Red List" split with Bastard Noise would have been a more fitting ending to the band. Dissapointing finale, but at least we still have the rest of their discography to enjoy. Rating: 5/10
~VII
I actually think they had a ultra small run cassette out after this. I haven't properly processed this release yet, but I felt the column of heaven cassette puts these releases more properly in context.
ReplyDeletePHT and TEB both had swan song releases on this split OHHHHH
ReplyDeleteto Ryan: column of heaven is a whole new band. I haven't heard that tape yet.
ReplyDeleteto Will: PHT just put out a new 7" on Iron Lung Records
@VII Yeah, I know that, but from talking to Andrew Nolan, and probably inserting my biases as well, its really a continuation of the ideas present towards the end of Blockade, in particular the use of noise. Actually I think he mentioned something similar on his blog.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think you might like COH better than this. Mainly because the cohesion between the noise elements and the music is something more at the forefront of the experience.
ReplyDeletei'll see if I can hunt it down somewhere
ReplyDeleteYou can download it at survivalist
ReplyDelete