New Murky Depths...

HATE&MERDA - La Capitale Del Male (2016)

The last time we heard from HATE&MERDA was with their L'Anno Dell'Odio debut album, which established the group's skills in the realm of harsh sludge.  With this new album, that skilled way with the sludgy returns in strong form, rolled with environmental texturing and abrasive fuzz into a mean low-tuned machine.  However, it also feels as though they've brought in more slow-paced sections this time around, which serves as an effective contrast for the parts in which they're slamming around and applying squeals of feedback.
And when they slam, they really slam.  Pounding drums and slabs of bass, vocals reduced to grunts and screams by the intensity of the moments, and other signs of the musicians throwing themselves headlong into their performance fill the tracks, so that when it switches back to drawls of reverbed notes, electronic atmospherics, and slow-built melodic strains, you realize just how much control they're exerting.  It's a sophomore album which shows significant growth, and a desire by the band to reach new heights in the mood and technique of their music.
This might be best shown in the 9-minute closing track, "Vai Via", which incorporates all of those elements from the previous tracks into a hard ride of unstable emotions and caustic sounds.  Despite the softer bridges used semi-regularly through the album, "Vai Via" does a good job of sending listeners off with an acrid aftertaste to solidify the album in memory as one which pulls few punches.  If you've been looking for some new sludge that doesn't stick to the basics and call it a day, be sure to check in on this LP.
~ Gabriel

For Fans Of;    Grey Widow, Hypnochron, Legalize Crime, O.D.R.A., Uroboros

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HATE&MERDA - In Itinere (320 kbps)

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Year Of Hate...

HATE&MERDA - L'Anno Dell'Odio (2014)

Here from Italy with their first album, the duo of HATE&MERDA burst from the start into sludge with a frosted edge.  Abrasive vocals, feedback, and bass guitar are enhanced by the production, lending something of a subterranean quality to the resonance and sense of distance.  It doesn't hurt that the drummer is capable of bashing out waves of lightly-distorted percussion to act as a counter-part to the rougher sonics, giving the whole thing a fitting sheen of violence.
While there's just five tracks to this debut, they burn on for more than a half-hour's worth of misanthropy and suffering, covering plenty of terrain in doing so.  The length of the songs presses the band into finding new ways to express their loud and stripped-down sound (including taking some breaks into melodic interludes to raise the contrast), and they experiment with an impressive range of styles in their search for satisfaction.  Samples, spoken word, drone, and more are stitched together into an assemblage that rarely shows its seams, even while sharply cutting from one component into another.
The duo have put together an impressive work for their first release, and there's so much variety packed into the material presented here that it seems futile to try and guess which musical directions they'll follow in the future.  I'd like to think that they'll continue crafting their complex experiments, but I feel assured that whatever they turn their hands and voices towards, they'll succeed in making something as worthy of exploration as this is.  Physical copies are limited, with 250 on vinyl and 26 on cassette (and the latter's already sold out), so if experimentalism is your bag, you'll want to act fast.
~ Gabriel

For Fans Of;    Hesperian Death Horse, Fleshpress, Abstracter, Sunken, Gnaw Their Tongues

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HATE&MERDA - Pieta' (320 kbps)

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