Impact Test - Gangwar

The opening piece on this album is a large sustained atmosphere of what sounds like single note instruments (piano, perhaps electronics) held flat and dramatically across a long plain of hissing noise. It sounds like a film soundtrack for impending doom via a bee's nest! The next piece has a similarly uncompromising approach, although the sound has much more grit and muscle, and tends to be overall a much more complex arrangement, moving from booming blasts of destruction to whining, rustling passages through which can be discerned ghost voices. At times it even hints at structure and composition, although this is the point at which they suddenly become self-conscious and blast off at a tangent again. There seems to be a lot in here, half-hidden within the noise-scapes and occasional edgy lulls - voices so far back in the mix as to be almost indistinguishable; New Age birdsong ambience; the sound of running water. As with most of this Shallow-End-Of-Pure-Noise Concrete stuff, you either lap it up or ignore it. Very minimal, very extreme - a few interesting moments, but it's definitely Ear of the Beholder stuff. Originally reviewed for Metamorphic Journeyman.