Dragged Into Sunlight/Gnaw Their Tongues – N.V.

If you're familiar with the book or film “American Psycho”, there is the scene when the titular character has two prostitutes in bed and things start going horribly wrong. As in, he winds up chasing them through his apartment with a chainsaw horribly wrong. I've always tried to imagine what goes through the mind of someone like that when they are committing their atrocities. After hearing this album, I'm pretty sure this music is what they hear. Even the old timey serial killers had to have something like this blasting in their brains. I know, metal wasn't invented yet in the days of Albert Fish and the like, but I have no doubt this is what they heard. These bands must have channeled the mind of a serial killer, and brought it to life aurally.
This is not a split release between Dragged Into Sunlight and Gnaw Their Tongues, but an actual collaboration between the two bands. The idea for this album goes back to 2011, and according to the press release the idea behind this is “to capture, digest and regurgitate Godflesh's 1989 “Streetcleaner” into a conceptualised nightmare”. I'm not sure about all the rest of that, but mission fucking accomplished on the nightmare part. I like horror films, the nastier, bloodier and gorier the better, I like things that make me feel uncomfortable, and this album does exactly that. Simply listening to it puts the listener on edge. It is truly a dark, malevolent mindfuck of an album.
To a fan of these bands, this will really come as no surprise. It is a little more industrial leaning than their previous efforts, but they have danced around this direction in the past. The surprising part, and certainly the part most worthy of notice, is that they have each taken their most vile and black tendencies, isolated them so well, and brought them into play on this release. I was a little disappointed to learn that apparently over 3 hours of music was produced by this unholy collaboration, yet the album is just a bit over 30 minutes long. I'll just put in my request now to please release more of this. Triple gatefold, blood red vinyl seems appropriate.
The music here is definitely not for everyone. There are snippets of what sound like murderers talking about how they killed their victims interspersed throughout the songs. I don't know if they are actual clips from actual murderers or just re-enactments, or possibly even fiction, but they tie in with the music very well. If you are a fan of suffocating, industrial black metal that seems derived from heinous crimes, this is the jam for you. I'm not sure how many people out there actually comprise the audience for a release like this.
I'm also more than a little bothered by the fact that I really, really, really enjoy this release.
- ODIN