EXISTENCE ESTABLISHMENT REVIEW:This is easily one of my favorite releases of 2012 and it's great to know that before the halfway point. Two underrated acts team up for this obsessive industrial slab of vinyl to form a formidable sonic force. Their respective styles differing so much yet at the same time complimenting each other gracefully. Right off the bat I noticed the absolutely gorgeous artwork with sparse yet well placed text which helps make this release an instant classic.
Corephallism is up first with two tracks of beautiful drone combined with noise and industrial influences. It's too ambient to be power electronics and much to somber to be straight up industrial. Both Abandonment and Rapes of Convenience are heightened with emotion and sharpened with a dark edge to create a truly menacing spectre. The tracks are short and to the point which easily encourages multiple playbacks. It's going to be no time before this record is already worn out.
Gnaw Their Tongues does away with their latest bombastic neo-classical flirtations to present A Moral Guide to Self-castration and Necrophilia which is a booming and sickened barrage of industrial clangs, screeches, and groans. Drum machines mangled enough to sound like they are the manifestation of a long dead factory worker haunting his former place of employment. Not to mention the sickened black metal-influenced vocals that appear. Cat like growling, insane whispering floating among the hollowed sounds.
This is truly a release of mammoth proportions, so honed to a point with aesthetic direction and cohesiveness that it's bleak artwork seems to seep through into its surroundings. The sounds presented are so intensely composed and atmospheric that it seems over in a flash, but you are left with some kind of disembodied evil resting heavily on your conscience. This record actually makes me feel guilty, regretful. Especially when I've found the needle has worn through it after so many repeated listens.
http://existest.org/ee_v3/?p=4861CRUCIAL BLAST REVIEW:Corephallism are a perfect match for Gnaw Their Tongues as they both share the same predilection for sexualized horror and pitch-black atmospherics, while utilizing distinctly different approaches to their extreme blackened industrial. This new split 10" Ep brings the two bands together, one on each side, presented in a striking black and white sleeve with lurid images of severe rope bondage and bruised flesh.
Corephallism (aka Shane Broderick of nudist power electronics squad Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck) offers two tracks on the a-side, beginning with the solemn drones of "Abandonment" that spread out on clouds of gleaming synth, soft funereal notes turning within the hum of the keyboards. Huge rumbling waves of low-end noise and extremely distorted vocals slowly flow in, hellish, monstrous utterances obscured by crushing feedback and amp-filth, but low in the mix so that these violent sounds never overwhelm the ominous droning synths. The second track "Rapes Of Convenience" is similarly constructed, flowing right out of the first song on more drifting sheets of keyboard hum and extended feedback, appearing at first as some massive dark ambient soundscape, but then overtaken by those vicious ultra-distorted vocals and stentorian bass throb. It evolves into a nightmare of slowly pulsating blackened power electronics, dipping off into brief stretches of minimal buzzing before rising up again in a massive burst of infernal electronic drone. Great stuff that finishes far too soon; fans of the jet-black PE/death ambient of Theologian and Prurient need to listen to this pronto.
On the other side Gnaw Their Tongues presents one long track called "A Moral Guide To Self-Castration And Necrophilia", which begins with the sounds of rumbling percussion, ominous reverberations from beneath the earth's surface, mechanical rattling, all of which slowly comes together, congealing into the hissing, grinding throb of some malevolent engine. As it builds, the track erupts with bursts of distorted doom-laden bass and gibbering demonic vocals, blasts of orchestral terror and pounding metallic percussion, horrific gasping sounds and howls of severe agony echoing across the background, and strains of eerie feedback trailing through the lightless murk. A bit more abstract than GTT's recent Per Flagellum album, but as nightmarish and evil as you'd expect from this Dutch black industrial project.
CIPHER PRODUCTIONS DISTRO: Really strong split from these two. Corephallism open with poignant, spacious ambience which is brutally assaulted by shards of devastating, overwhelming power electronics. Just so good. Then Gnaw Their Tongues hit with a captivating bit of death industrial/noise, dungeon ambience stung by junk metal and hints of black metal vocal furor. Highly recommended.
HEATHEN HARVEST REVIEW:As prolific as Gnaw their Tongues seemed like they were going to be over the past five years through releases with Paradigms Records, Crucial Blast, At War with False Noise, and Black Goat Records, they slowed down to a snail's pace in 2011 with one simple release on the aforementioned Crucial Blast, "Per Flagellum Sanguemque, Tenebras Veneramus". Now with 2012, this is Gnaw their Tongues' first effort and it exists as a split with Corephallism which itself exists on the opposite end of the spectrum having only released one album prior to this back in 2009 as a collaboration between the labels Apop Records and Lascivious Aesthetics, the latter of which is responsible for releasing this effort. The man behind the madness of Corephallism as well as the label behind the release is perhaps more well-known as being one-third of the infamous American power electronics trio Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck, Shane Michael Broderick. Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck also hit a roadblock in 2009 and haven't released anything since, so this is Shane's (now going by "Shame") first release in 3 years.
Side A finds Shame taking a different approach to his style than what listeners may be used to with his solo live performances and his work in Twodeadsluts, Onegoodfuck. It's somewhat difficult to describe but what he has created here is a warm synth drone that shifts chords trudgingly and is soon greeted by strong, harsh power electronics that are jagged and sharp, existing in contract to the drone that envelopes the background of the track. The power electronics cut out after a few minutes and all that is left is this warm synth. If there were such a thing as "funeral electronics", I assume this is where the conclusion would be had. Track two, "Rapes of Convenience", is a bit more harsh with more of an industrial appeal and a low-end droning horn sound like a ship in hellish mists. These tracks are raw and cutting, but not necessarily loud and harsh. Just jagged. Emotionally brutal.
Side B features one track of dark ambiance and industrial noise from Gnaw their Tongues, "A Moral Guide to Self-castration and Necrophilia". This track features the ominous clanking and explicitly disturbing sampled screams and whispers that you'd come to envision from this project as his music has become exceedingly authentically malevolent as his career has rolled on. The noise is pernicious as it approaches slowly, first building as industrial elements congregate to create a disturbing ambiance, and then descending into complete violent spite before the destructive tendencies calm and we're left with industrial elements once again. Hostile vocals line this track in it's furthest depths during the noisier moments that are as uncannily necrose as the track title implies.
I have to admit that this is one of my favorite album covers especially in relation to noise/power electronics and the bondage themes that run rampant in their respective scenes. Ironically, it's perhaps my favorite involving the female form since the sexually ritualistic appeal of Gnaw their Tongues' "Dawn Breaks Open like a Wound that Bleeds Afresh". It's specifically appealing because there's no tape or rope used, but rather what appears to be string or fishing line that turns the flesh into the same diamond cross-cut material as you'd normally see on a quilt. Less surface area on the material exposes more skin and offers less comfort for the submissive creature behind the material. Not only is this incredibly sexy, but it represents the nature of the music found on the LP quite well — more oppression, more pain with less material. With that taken into consideration, it's no surprise that with Corephallism, SMB has taken his breed of noise to a more subtle, yet just as raw, approach. Of course, Corephallism is a "rare term for anal sex with a young girl", so what most people take from this release may be more attuned to comparisons to Nicole12 or even Peter Sotos than is logically realistic.
http://heathenharvest.org/2012/04/22/split-corephallism-gnaw-their-tongues/ONE TRUE DEAD ANGEL REVIEW:Corephallism / Gnaw Their Tongues -- split 10" [Lascivious Aesthetics]
First off, major bonus points for the lurid BDSM-themed cover art (hop over to the label site's link below to see it for yourself). What we have here is a split between two decidedly extreme acts wallowing in the dark, bloody trough that separates primitive black metal and noise: on one side, the side project of Boston's Shane Michael Broderick, best known as one half of Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck, and on the other, the one-man sonic terrorist known as Gnaw Their Tongues. As you might expect, this release is a serious act of ugliness. Corephallism contributes two tracks, "Abandonment" and "Rapes of Convenience," opening on the first track with an ominous synth drone that grows denser and darker as Broderick shovels on passages of gruesome power electronics. It's claustrophobic and eerie without being strident, and the second track is similar but more equally divided in the balance between drone and noise. Both tracks are supremely creepy. On the flip side, Gnaw Their Tongues offers up "A Moral Guide To Self-castration and Necrophilia," which features what sounds like an undertaker pounding nails into a coffin over an ocean of black drone and crashing noises like barbarians tearing down an ancient city gate, complete with the shrieking lamentations of those being raped and slaughtered (or maybe the other way around, given the song title). It's violent, murky, unsettling stuff, stripped of the operatic and classical overtones of the band's most recent full-length work in favor of something that sounds more like soldiers on the rampage, looting and pillaging and breaking glass by throwing bodies through windows. Listen to this while under the influence of illicit drugs and you can guarantee yourself some seriously hideous nightmares.
ZERO TOLERANCE REVIEW:Corephallism / Gnaw Their Tongues -- split 10" [Lascivious Aesthetics]
Corephallism makes nasty music. Music that sounds unpleasant and vindictive - the power electronics stench and analogue synth-layering that recalls Prurient before he went toothless. Electronics were supposed to be cold and dehumanising: Corephallism makes it personal. The noise/black metal chaos that is Gnaw Their Tongues isn't out for personal revenge with this track. He's soundtracking the whole lot of us going down in smoke, ruins and the collapse of the world around us. 4/5
ESOTERRORIST REVIEWThe new split 10-inch by Gnaw Their Tongues and Corephallism proves to be a perfect match, made in hell, of course, and results in dark, brooding death-ambient brutality.
Gnaw Their Tongues fills their side with the doom-promising track "A Moral Guide to Self-Castration and Necrophilia," where the nearly seven years-old group create a terrifying noise-drone factory imprisoning tortured black metal vocal stylings. Destroyed instrumentation rings from the depths of a metallic pit and produces short echoes of pure nihilism.
Corephallism is the solo project of sound artist Shane Michael Broderick, who is probably most known for his work in the extreme noise duo Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck. With Corephallism on the split, Broderick channels a personally unique array of variations in approach to dark ambient drone that swells in and out of power electronics. Distorted screams are introduced by the second of his two tracks that narrate the grim and mysterious landscape.
Both bands maintain a cohesive, unified atmosphere, whether this was planned or coincidental. The eerie drones transforming into death grinds create a sick pleasure, a beauty that is twisted and mired in thorny, leafless branches, that cooperate as a singular voice, two sides of the same whole. Highly recommended.
