ninehertz

Many years ago I came across a CD version of Toronto’s eyeswithoutaface’s Warguts album for £1 in a charity shop rack. Intrigued by the description I bought it on a whim. It sounded like nothing I’d heard – a combination of hip hop, electronics and sludge. It should sound terrible, but it was dark and mysterious and psychedelic in new and fascinating ways.

I’ve kept my eye out for them since, but there hasn’t been a new release since a split with IRN a decade ago. Then this appears, a nice surprise until the circumstances become clear – this is the last recordings of vocalist Max before his death last year. The band have pulled this together as a document for friends and fans to remember him by.

It is, naturally, extremely poignant. It also showcases the band they were, and if more people are drawn to them through this release and discover their back catalogue, that would feel fitting. There are five untitled tracks here, all containing the unusual and diverse grouping of sounds from when I first heard them.

Pick any song and you’ll find out soon enough. There are strange, sampled noise and loops on untitled #1, from a hip-hop mentality but brought into a metal structure, a transition to an industrial beat, before diverting first into a trip-hop style mood and then uglier chaos nearer its end. Their ability to control these wildly polarising elements and harness them to create the unexpected is unique.

And then there are the vocals. There’s a fierceness to them, an electricity behind them, moving between hardcore styled and death-sludge guttural bursts. They frame the tracks, whether interacting with electro pulses or the heavier, darker waves. The contrast between the mechanical instrumentation and the wholly organic vocal delivery proves a hallmark.

This is primarily an electro album, like The Body with a hardcore and hip-hop background – at time sounding like the soundtrack to a twisted neo-noir, others where the glitch electronica brings in all manner of noises, harsh and ambient. Their experimentalism is pushed again on untitled #4, with piano and violin turning it towards folk drone territories.

This may be significantly less metallic than the music within which I usually reside, but it is an absolutely fascinating listen, evidence of a truly unique band. This is ode to their friend, and it stands with distinction in their honour.