It's Monday and Mondays suck, so let's grind it out with meth.'s Mother of Red Light.
This week is a slight deviation from grind. Not massively as you'll see that there are plenty of grind elements in meth.'s music. What started out as grinding noise and madness has evolved into a much different beast to include things like noise rock, dissonance and black metal.
The Chicago, IL six piece wasn't always as big as it was. The Children Are Watching was an iteration of only three members grinding out some real harsh tunes. Their second EP I Love You added three more members, which in turn made songs triple in length. Pushing forward, the six piece offers up their debut Mother of Red Light.
"Failure" opens the record and unlike a lot grind records, it's pretty quiet. Nothing much happens except a low building hum for about 40 seconds. The track really picks up about halfway through and vocals don't kick in until the last thirty seconds and before you know it the track seamlessly slips into "Child of God."
Mother of Red Light isn't the kind of album that's trying to make your skin explode, but peel it back layer after layer. It's an album that builds on anxiety and dissonance. If you feel like there's a heavy draw from KEN Mode and Daughters, you're not alone here. Plenty of this record sounds like a fusion of noise rock and grindcore with a lot darker, panicked elements thrown in. "Swallowed Conscience" starts out like it has shakes it can't control until it descends into a well of dread and dispair. Even at the height of its anxiety it's only scratching away at cobblestone, peeling back its own fingernails.
"Her Womb Lays Still" is a more grinding piece that sounds like it cut its teeth on some Violence, Violence-era Ceremony. It doesn't stay around too long though and descends back into dissonance only to hit hard with a breakdown that's just blackened enough. Meanwhile, parts of "Cold Prayers" almost feel like they're evoking Deathspell Omega.
The album wraps up on "Return Me (My Body)" which fuses black metal, sheer grinding insanity, and plenty of noisy bits to break things up. It sends the listener off on a reeling note. Mother of Red Light is meth. not being afraid to try things and those things really working out for them. They're eclectic and they're damn good at getting down a manic sound. Get grinding on this!
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