{"id":18077,"date":"2015-01-29T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2015-01-29T17:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toiletovhell.com\/?p=18077"},"modified":"2015-01-29T12:12:14","modified_gmt":"2015-01-29T17:12:14","slug":"iron-bonehead-promo-reviews-black-cilice-hic-iacet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/iron-bonehead-promo-reviews-black-cilice-hic-iacet\/","title":{"rendered":"Iron Bonehead Promo Reviews: Black Cilice & Hic Iacet"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We like Iron Bonehead Productions<\/b>\u00a0a lot around here. Have we ever mentioned that? They sent us some promos recently and we’ve really been enjoying them. In case for some dumb\u00a0reason you don’t plan your entire life around the Toilet’s posting schedule\u00a0for fear of overlooking something important, you can check out W.<\/strong>‘s collection of favorites right\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0(featuring Swar\u00fe,<\/strong>\u00a0Isabrut<\/strong>, and\u00a0Death Karma<\/strong>). Today we turn the spotlight to\u00a0my two picks. I hope you like them. Please like them.<\/p>\n

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BLACK CILICE – MYSTERIES
\nIron Bonehead Productions<\/strong> – January 30 2015<\/p>\n

\"black<\/p>\n

Allow\u00a0me to start this off with a bit of cautionary advice. This is some raw black metal. This is like\u00a0eating steak tartare and\u00a0listening to\u00a0<\/b>Nattens madrigal<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>at the same time. If your\u00a0poor,\u00a0virginal ears just can’t handle it (or if you have taste or whatever), turn back now and take your exhausted\u00a0Fisher Price microphone jokes with you. I wouldn’t\u00a0blame you, but I’d insist that\u00a0you’re missing out on something.\u00a0Though I’m not entirely sure what it is. Dismantled,\u00a0Mysteries<\/em> is little more than a confusion of intentionally crude sounds and intentionally shoddy production – the guitar and drum tones are grating\u00a0and feedback from one source or another\u00a0frequently lifts\u00a0its head through a\u00a0ubiquitous static buzz. Mysteries\u00a0<\/em>has all the makings of a deadly headache. So why do I like it so much?<\/p>\n

The sum is that\u00a0Mysteries’\u00a0<\/em>questionable parts harmonize with one another unexpectedly and extraordinarily well. The wall of sound into which they unify\u00a0is a sharp earful at first, but when given time to gestate becomes moving; admittedly coarse, but undeniably resonant. Think Paysage\u00a0<\/strong>d’Hiver<\/strong>.\u00a0Darkly beautiful melodies rise and fall gently through indistinct layers of harsh reverb.\u00a0The somewhat atypical vocal approach is largely responsible for tying things together, acting as an ambient backdrop rather than a driving force. They’re a far cry from harsh, generally emerging as an extended, undulant howl; I keep coming back to the sound of\u00a0wind sighing through branches. They, like the rest of this album’s components, might seem inane if heard in solitary, but become something quite\u00a0haunting in context.<\/p>\n

It’s the\u00a0swirling courtship of riffing, blasting, howling, and, yes, even feedback that makes Black Cilice so arresting. Mysteries<\/em>\u00a0effortlessly evokes the surreal, something many bands strive for and never accomplish. It’s spellbinding, and I can’t stop listening to it. Give it some time. Absorb it, and let it absorb you or whatever. Listen to the album’s first track “To Become” here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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HIC IACET – THE COSMIC TRANCE INTO THE VOID
\nIron Bonehead Productions<\/strong> – January 30 2015<\/p>\n

\"dddd\"<\/p>\n

The mysterious Spanish dudes in Hic Iacet\u00a0<\/strong>planted themselves in the soil of bestial black\/death in 2011 with their demo\u00a0Hedonist of Death,<\/em> then\u00a0drove\u00a0their roots deeper in 2012 with\u00a0Prophecy of Doom\u00a0<\/em>(7″). Now we have their debut full-length, The Cosmic Trance into the Void<\/i>, which, according to the label, “displays a more dynamic, daresay transcendental Hic Iacet.” Personally, I wouldn’t say transcendental because\u00a0I hate that stupid word. Instead I’ll say that Hic Iacet sounds like Neil deGrasse Tyson shared some of his LSD with Angelcorpse<\/b> and started talking to them about, like, space and dimensions and stuff.<\/p>\n

And it’s awesome.\u00a0The Cosmic Trance\u00a0<\/em>into the Void\u00a0<\/em>rambles through 39 minutes of occult\u00a0texture and shuffled tempos across the spectrum of death metal, black metal, and doom. As a stripped down act with a straightforward\u00a0approach, Hic Iacet channels the arcane through the weirdness of their melodies more than anything else. Tendrilous riffs twist in unnatural ways and form strange patterns – the final riff in “Into the Bowels of the Absolute” breaks away from the blasting and opens a slow whirling portal to places unknown. It’s sections like that that\u00a0make this album a “cosmic trance” more so than the somewhat strained esotericness of the monk-ish chanting\/singing passages\u00a0that crop up every so often, though the ends of the title track and album closer “The Catacombs of the Mandala” use them to great, mesmerizing effect.<\/p>\n