Bloody Knives « The RingMaster Review

credit Mark Wallace

As we keenly sink into the creative depths of the new album from Inkräktare once more for the actual writing of this review, it is hard to remember any encounter in recent times as absorbing yet unsettling and as invigorating but disturbingly haunting as We Are Not Really Here. It brings a collection of tracks which voraciously embrace the listener, engulfing their senses and imagination in a proposition as sonically claustrophobic as it is expansive in sound and intimation.

We Are Not Really Here comes ten years after the first Inkräktare full-length and sees producer and multi-instrumentalist Dean Garcia (Curve, SPC ECO, S T F U, Blurred City Lights) creatively and in sound poetically igniting the dark and invasive soundscapes created by his collaborative partner, Mark Wallbridge (a.k.a. Vasko The Pig). It is a riveting union of craft and imagination which makes their new album one compelling trespass which is made only more enthralling by the vocal presence of Rose Berlin (SPC ECO) and Preston Maddox (Bloody Knives and S T F U).

Album opener Speak Out Loud called to the imagination from its first crystalline breath, keys a radiant lure within the darker electronic landscape soon unfolding within ears as the hypnotic tones of Berlin serenade quickly enveloped senses. Even in its enthralling beauty there is a dark intensity brewing within the song; a gathering fume of shadows which just as eagerly captivated as the kaleidoscope of light above them.

The following Say Goodbye To You comes from a more shadowy depth but too brings a magnetic elegance and lure to temper the volatile and agitated heart of the song. With Maddox’s voice another rich lure in the rapaciously mercurial insistence of the song, it invites and devours in equal intensity and craft before Terrified explores similarly dark corners and textures within its drifting sonic winds; nightmare and alluring intimation embracing each other’s contrasting hues. Even with Berlin’s tones a safe caress if succubus like in the haunting embrace, the track disturbs as it seduces while The Night Growls prowls the same mental landscape with predatory intent with Wallbridge’s tones in turn a dark protagonist in suffocating aural and emotive fog. Both tracks simply bewitched the senses and festered in the imagination, the Nine Inch Nails toned latter especially irresistible as it consumed with voracious, tenebrous temptation.

The nagging enterprise and breath of Free The World equally proved a spellbinding exploration, Berlin again a light for the moth of greedy curiosity for the song’s fascination and mercurial landscape while We Are Broken and We Are Not Really Here with their respective electro pop breath and evocative dub nurtured escapade only fuelled captivation even if the first did not quite hit the addictive hazard warning heights of its successor.

Who Cares offers another melodic sunspot in a richly atmospheric embrace while Saphirr Bomb after is like a sonic house of mirrors, each sheet of melodic crystal shattered or tainted by the invasive shadows of darkness as the spellbinding track gripped ears and psyche. Echoing the album as a whole, both songs brought warm light and invasive disturbance to ears and thoughts, a striking enterprise and suggestion just as fertile within the toxically crawling, senses chaffing, emotion disturbing Husk.

Closing with the thought questioning Could There Be?, a sand storm of melodic grains and sonic resonance, We Are Not Really Here is a release which reveals and gives more by the listen. It is an encounter which takes the listener out of step with reality yet throws a provocative light upon all the world’s emotional darkness and physical flaws whilst providing unbridled temptation.

We Are Not Really Here is out now via ELaB Recordings; available @ https://inkraktare.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Inkraktare https://twitter.com/VaskoThePig

Pete RingMaster 04/01/2020

BK_RingMasterReview

The tone of its title, I Will Cut Your Heart Out For This, pretty much sets you up for the emotional trespass and sonic attitude of the new album from Texan trio Bloody Knives. It is a dark invasive suggestion echoed throughout the eight tracks’ scarred nihilistic hearts and a sound which crawls over and smothers the senses. Equally, it comes fuelled by melancholy thicker than Victorian London fog which at times is just as oppressive and invasively enveloping as the caustically natured sounds and as compelling as the raw beauty also invading ear and imagination.

Consisting of Preston Maddox (bass, voice, keyboards, samples, programming), Jake McCown (drums, noise, programming, art), and Jack O’Hara Harris (guitars, noise), Bloody Knives creates soundscapes which immerses the imagination in the darkest corners of life and emotion, into the harshest shadows within fiercest betrayals and deeds. Trying to accurately pin down their sound, lyrically and emotionally, is like trying to grab air, music and album simply a dense kaleidoscope of flavours and thought grasping dramas. The trio certainly find the coldest and rawest aspects of styles like dream pop, shoegaze, and psych pop to weave into intoxicating tempests also shaped by essences of post punk and industrially honed ethereal droning. It is a mesmeric and disturbing mix stealing attention instantly within the opener of the Maddox and Ian Rundell (Dead Space, Ghetto Ghouls, Xetas) recorded and Adam Stilson (New Canyons, Airiel, The March Violets) mixed and mastered I Will Cut Your Heart Out For This.

The album opens with Cystic, an instantly blistering nagging on the senses as guitars and keys sizzle venomously around the infectious stroll of the bass and Maddox’s morosely inviting and solemnly mellow vocals. Like a mix of My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and Crispy Ambulance yet, as all tracks, something uniquely Bloody Knives, the song bites, grumbles, and entices with an inescapable virulence before it evolves into the following Blood Turns Cold. There is an even darker, almost desperation hued emotion and air to the second track, its character uncompromising and ravenous as icy melodies and melancholic vocals lace the transfixing drone of the encounter.

art_RingMasterReview A bolder, antagonistic post punk undercurrent runs through the next up Reflection Lies, the bass leading those magnetic textures within another imagination sparking smog of sonic and melodic dissonance cast by guitar and synth, while Black Hole swings and rumbles with celestial and almost carnivorous washes of sound and emotion, each evolving and expanding in the ears with every passing minute. Both tracks majorly beguile and intimidate in varying ways and each ignites the senses, but the second of the two with its punk growl and techno flirtation within ravenous atmospheric explorations is especially irresistible.

Through the plaintive tone and sonic trespass of Static, where a great catchy Leitmotive like nagging emerges, and the dark, deranged almost funereal waltz of the instrumental —-, ears and thoughts continue to be potently challenged and eagerly involved whilst Poison Halo offers an even fiercer wall of aural and emotional density. As ever the raw and suffocating hues of sound are expertly tempered by the coldly engaging delivery of Maddox and the often seemingly toxic melodies, the bass again sparking the contagiousness underpinning every song in one way or another.

Finishing with Buried Alive, a captivating assault of sonic and emotional discordance equipped with keenly edged scythes of guitars, psyche invading keys, and that ever successful rousing bass tenacity not forgetting the fiercely persuasive vocals, I Will Cut Your Heart Out For This is a thrilling confrontation and adventure. It takes the listener to new, invasive places in body and emotion yet rewards with spirit arousing challenges. With only the drums having their bite dulled by the swamp of sound around them as a minute niggle, I Will Cut Your Heart Out For This is simply one easy recommendation.

I Will Cut Your Heart Out For This is out now via Saint Marie Records @ https://saintmarierecords.bandcamp.com/album/i-will-cut-your-heart-out-for-this available digitally and on Vinyl limited to 500 (200 Black and 300 Ox blood / Electric Blue)