Kult Reviews: ASH POOL - World Turns On Its Hinges
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| Right-click to download “Under Zyklon Blue” |
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Birthed in an abysmal New York City basement, black metal band Ash Pool issue forth smoldering, dark and noxious metal. World Turns On Its Hinge (Tour De Garde/Hospital Productions) is their latest batch of truly, and quite literally, underground black metal. Like unknown soldiers, their identities are unlisted, kept in the dark, letting their music reign in pure black mass.
Ash Pool waste no time before igniting the subterranean blaze. World Turns On Its Hinge’s opening track, “Sin of Life,” begins with crashing cymbals and brash guitar, a gated technique reminiscent of Ukrainian black metallers Hate Forest’s work on Sorrow. “Mouth is cracked, stuffed with feces,” hawks Ash Pool’s singer from under the assault of metallic guitar and drums.
Track four, “Shade of Rape,” continues the unforgiving assault with its incinerating wall of thrash. This visceral, hack-and-grind approach is what makes Ash Pool’s underground lo/fi style so utterly terrifying…and invigorating. By stripping the production down to its basest elements, Ash Pool create a sonic intimacy that is rarely, if ever, found on top-dollar, studio-polished metal albums.
Continuing this raw trend—and sounding like early Burzum in the process—“Under Zyklon Blue” begins with kick drum patter, fuzzy picked guitar and a deathly enticing melody. The song soon crashes into motion with what sounds like entombed monks chanting while the lead singer’s dismal shouts crackle into the mix.
It’s hard not to make connections between the song’s menacing namesake—Zyklon B was the poison used by the Nazis to kill over one million people in the gas chambers during the Holocaust—and the origins of Ash Pool’s own moniker. After all it was outside those chambers, beyond the crematoriums, where the fields turned grey as death camp soldiers dumped the remains into pools of water that turned black with human ash.
Thus Ash Pool mimics its own title through its sound and in the process creates true, brutal lo/fi black metal captured on World Turns On Its Hinge. – Ian Caskey
Well this thing should stay in the basement, it was birthed in. Another pile of garbage, I believe this is worse the Alcest.
I really liked the last demo tape and the 7″ have only heard one track from this but have to say i liked it. Its the right side of raw without sounding totally contrived. Both the guitars and vocals have a sort of filosofem feel about them! really vicious but with some unusual melody creeping in. Dunno made me think of deathspell and bone awl at the same time which is odd.
This is one of the best Black Metal album to ever see the light from U.S.A… It’s a must, end of the story.
Kvlt USBM material here! A Must have for true Underground American Black Metal snobs.