{"id":119185,"date":"2023-08-07T11:00:05","date_gmt":"2023-08-07T16:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/?p=119185"},"modified":"2023-08-07T11:06:24","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T16:06:24","slug":"review-gom-jabbar-pissing-contest-self-titled-split","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/review-gom-jabbar-pissing-contest-self-titled-split\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: <b>Gom Jabbar\/Pissing Contest<\/b> &#8211; <i>S\/T Split<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>A new split from underground stalwart label Morbid And Miserable Records bubbles into the ether, continuing a solid calendar year that most prominently included <strong>Slog<\/strong>&#8216;s new death\/doom highlight <em>Divination<\/em> and the uppity <strong>Cancerworm<\/strong>-worship of horror-obsessed punks <strong>The Cult Of Spaceskull<\/strong>. The self-titled split sees Toledo-based band <strong>Gom Jabbar\u2014<\/strong>a frenetic three piece mixing elements of powerviolence, noise, and harsh black metal\u2014join forces with frenetic grind outfit <strong>Pissing Contest<\/strong>. The latter are ordinarily a marked contrast to the stylings of Gom Jabbar. Primarily a grimey crust and grind project, Pissing Contest&#8217;s contribution to the new split is taken from studio sessions during the recording of their punishing 2020 self-titled EP, unreleased until now.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>With both projects providing a single track, they both end up running a little under ten minutes each\u2014uncharacteristic of Pissing Contest&#8217;s shorter burst of emphatic, rollicking grind.<\/p>\n<p>Gom Jabbar&#8217;s &#8220;Magic In Numbers&#8221; begins with a wet, bassy tone that underpins the track&#8217;s introduction. The tone stays consistent and bubbles beneath mountain of building feedback and contact microphone scraping. The manipulated noise-working is indicative of the projects power electronics and harsh noise influence, with the specific influence of <strong>Sissy Spacek<\/strong> on the record acknowledged by the band.<\/p>\n<p>A drum fill bursts from the static and signals a passage of raw guitar riffing, blisteringly cold and semi-perceptible through feedback. Gom Jabbar sound here like a mangled <strong>Man Is The Bastard<\/strong> in many ways. Whereas the best tracks of Man Is The Bastard that they share similarity with were defined by sharp transitions from sludgy, bass-driven dirges with short accents to frenetic hardcore assaults\u2014specifically a track like &#8220;Puppy Mill&#8221;\u2014Gom Jabbar&#8217;s sheer shrillness and sharpness almost inverts that sound, veering on the edges of black metal with its swirling free-form vortex.<\/p>\n<p>While I&#8217;m no expert on the Dune series, the name Gom Jabbar seems appropriate. The titular Gom Jabbar is an assassination tool from the setting\u2014a poison-tipped needle that kills near-immediately. A corrosive sharpness defines &#8220;Magic In Numbers&#8221;\u2014a track that&#8217;s tight and suffocating, bursting out like air from a constricted throat.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 420px; height: 120px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=388940192\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/track=4122454491\/transparent=true\/\" seamless=\"\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/morbidandmiserable.bandcamp.com\/album\/gom-jabbar-pissing-contest\">Gom Jabbar | Pissing Contest by Gom Jabbar<\/a><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Whereas &#8220;Magic In Numbers&#8221; shot into life following a more subdued introduction, Pissing Contest&#8217;s X begins with a slow, sustained doom riff, trudging forward like an awakened giant. Retaining a strong influence from desolate Caverncore alongside the knuckle-dragging caveman-dirge of <strong>Primitive Man<\/strong>, the track creates a droning, impressionistic sheen of heavy, sustained atmosphere that belies just how catchy its riffing is. The vamps and transitions between the track&#8217;s larger sections are understated due to its droning quality, resulting in a fucking hypnotic song despite its outwardly hostile, baleful aesthetic.<\/p>\n<p>If &#8220;X&#8221; is emblematic of the direction of Pissing Contest&#8217;s musical trajectory, it&#8217;d be a pleasant sign\u2014that combination of scratching, menacing sludge and gangrenous grindcore influence has been a well-trodden formula since the 2010s, but it&#8217;s in hearing their sheer harshness combined with their looser, improvisational qualities that makes it so promising as a track.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 420px; height: 120px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=388940192\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/track=3102160019\/transparent=true\/\" seamless=\"\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/morbidandmiserable.bandcamp.com\/album\/gom-jabbar-pissing-contest\">Gom Jabbar | Pissing Contest by Pissing Contest<\/a><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Despite the disparate musical background of these projects, they manage to both share tracks that have a formlessness to them\u2014despite both retaining a general genre framework, there are moments throughout both tracks that highlight their undefined musical edges. It&#8217;s a combination of primitive, aggressive aural assaults and freely improvised, obscured riffing that gives it a dynamic edge: old and new; primordial and ever-present; high-brow and low-brow. That primordial quality running through both tracks brings to mind Derek Bailey, a man who, on the subject of improvisation, commented;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>Mankind&#8217;s first musical performance couldn&#8217;t have been anything other than a free improvisation<\/strong>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That combination of primitivism and the immaterial, like a cro-magnon expressing something alien, like a monkey staring at a monolith, that&#8217;s what defined the record to me.\u00a0For such an outwardly unassuming release, <em>Pissing Contest<\/em> and <em>Gom Jabbar<\/em> have produced one of the years best extreme metal releases.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">3.5\/5 Flaming Toilets ov Hell<\/h2>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-52320 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/NEW_TOILETSCALE_3-5_of_5.jpg?resize=709%2C162&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"709\" height=\"162\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/NEW_TOILETSCALE_3-5_of_5.jpg?resize=1024%2C234&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/NEW_TOILETSCALE_3-5_of_5.jpg?resize=300%2C68&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/NEW_TOILETSCALE_3-5_of_5.jpg?resize=768%2C175&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/NEW_TOILETSCALE_3-5_of_5.jpg?w=1249&amp;ssl=1 1249w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 709px) 100vw, 709px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(<a href=\"https:\/\/morbidandmiserable.bandcamp.com\/album\/gom-jabbar-pissing-contest\"><em>Photos via)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new split from underground stalwart label Morbid And Miserable Records bubbles into the ether, continuing a solid calendar year that most prominently included Slog&#8216;s new death\/doom highlight Divination and the uppity Cancerworm-worship of horror-obsessed punks The Cult Of Spaceskull. The self-titled split sees Toledo-based band Gom Jabbar\u2014a frenetic three piece mixing elements of powerviolence, noise, and harsh black metal\u2014join forces with frenetic grind outfit Pissing Contest. The latter are ordinarily a marked contrast to the stylings of Gom Jabbar. Primarily a grimey crust and grind project, Pissing Contest&#8217;s contribution to the new split is taken from studio sessions during [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":119214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Ever get into a Pissing Contest with a Gom Jabbar? Aaron's got himself into a prickly situation with this split review!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,39,403,70],"tags":[2456,1454,4952,17690,1029,17691],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Gom-Jabbar-Header.jpg?fit=710%2C375&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119185"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119220,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119185\/revisions\/119220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}