Following the recording and eventual release of the Dawn Simulation full-length CD on Chondritic, perhaps the project’s most ambitious and fully realized work yet, Tomb Mold titan and underground mainstay Max Klebanoff has continued to keep busy with his Death Kneel alias, putting out a series of short ‘n sweet tapes on in-house imprint Life of Sensation over the past seven-or-so months. Each of the succinct slices (a C10, C11, and C14, respectively) has provided an opportunity to explore the more caustic facets of his distinct and multifarious take on heavy electronics: both Seneca Hill Haymaker and Agonizer deal in glitchy cut-up and rough-edged concrète, and the newly available Burning Grip continues this winning trend, hoisting the already intense formula to new heights with an emphasis on density, volatility, and all-around extremity. The limited real estate leaves little to no room for patient dynamic builds or sustained soundscapes; “Dogfish Head Piledriver” gets right down to business with a flailing assault of brittle crunch, the first forty-five seconds alone crammed with so many rapid-fire bursts, stuttering skips, and pulverized samples that it’s just as tempting to start over and take it all in again as it is to keep listening. The remaining six minutes of the track, as well as the B side’s “Mixing My Bastards (Reactive Edit),” burrow further into the possibilities offered by this streamlined yet still diverse approach, cycling texture after texture through a punishing assembly line of automated wringers, mincers, and blenders. It may be a focused and even slightly divergent subset of the sound that made Dawn Simulation and its predecessor Adaptive Emotional Use such rewarding works, but this is still unmistakably Death Kneel: the mongrelized fusion of digital detail and analog grit, the seething mecha-industrial simmer, the gnash and snarl of a caged beast chewing through its chains.
Copies are available via email: lifeofsensation@gmail.com.
Noise Not Music 