"Hallowed Butchery's
Funeral Rites For The Living is one of those
CD's that mysteriously made its way into my collection without me
knowing how or why. I remember someone sent it to me once, a few months
back possibly, but I have no recollection of who that someone is or
was. It may even have been one of those benign guardian angels, I've
heard they are pretty active once again these days.
Anyway, Hallowed Butchery is pretty cool. Mr. Fairfield claims to take influence from bands ranging from
Black Sabbath to Johnny Cash and back to
Melvins,
passing Cocteau Twins and T. Rex along the way. While I'm sure he
enjoys all these (great) bands, the end result has more in common of
Funeral Doom á la
Tyranny blended in with a good deal of Sludge, various hysteric movie samples and the occasional odd part.
Those ill-willed could argue that the album doesn't really have a story
to it, that it doesn't really go anywhere. And it is a fact that this
album does not contain 'songs', or a musical red thread. In fact, this
album is pretty random, but I believe it is random intentionally so.
Like a carnival bizarre, sections of groaning angry sludge morph into
warm acoustic strumming, while moments later tribal drums and
symphonics take over and push the wall of sound sky high, to later
dissolve into a Neil Young cover that leaves you with that particular
feeling you have after having been drugged up and drugged out for way
too long. That is, in a nutshell, this album, and it's musically
deranged and innovative structure is what I so greatly appreciate. If
you're in for this, all you have to do is sit back and enjoy this
grande collage of various extreme and estranging sounds. For some every
musical idea that is portrayed is too short-lived, but to me it adds to
the schizophrenic nature of the album.
Besides that, the musicianship is top-notch and the impressive
atmosphere Mr. Fairfield puts up all by himself is quite a feat. Even
the production has been taken care of wonderfully – Hallowed Butchery
doesn't settle for half-done work, it seems. Every instrument blends
nicely in with the others, nothing tones sound out-of-context or
misplaced and when the need is there the sound is downright majestic.
It seems this album has been out for a quite a while, but there hasn't
been much attention for it. Quite unfair in my humble opinion - but I
have my fingers crossed that the next release (if?) will be as good or
better and will stir the waters o' doom with greater force. And I'm
pretty damn sure it will."
8.6/10http://www.metalstorm.ee/pub/review.php?review_id=7051