cassette craze chronicles X (feat. ABSTRACTER, FUOCO FATUO, VESSEL OF INIQUITY and ZAQQOEM)

Oh no, hide your eardrums! This had to happen at some point. It's that new installment of the cassette craze chronicles we all dreaded: Sonic warfare! It's a Sentient Ruin Laboratories special!

ABSTRACTER - Abominion (2021)

When radioactive mutant zombie rats fight over the remains of our post-apocalyptic wasteland, they better not lay into my tape collection, because Abstracter's "Abominion" will fucking devour them from the inside! This monstrous bastard of Triptykon, Godflesh, blackest death and destructive dissonance might survive when everything else is gone, just to laugh and growl "Told you so!" over the rotting remains of civilization and life on this poisoned planet. Fuck yeah, this shit is so enormously cataclysmic! I love it.
And damn, what a packaging of the cassette, with the long j-card, slipcase and even an obi strip! That's how you do it!
AND IF YOU WANT TO READ SOMETHING A LITTLE MORE TANGIBLE ABOUT THE MUSICAL CONTENT, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CHECK OUT MY REVIEW OF THE ALBUM ON VEIL OF SOUND!  

FUOCO FATUO - Backwater (2017/2021)

FUOCO FATUO - Obsidian Katabasis (2021)

Bell Witch, Loss... There's no doubt that Profound Lore Records know their funeral doom. And Sentient Ruin prove their formidable taste by re-releasing these two albums of the abysmal Italian funeral doomers Fuoco Fatuo as a box set. This band truly really plays to the trademarks of both labels. While being mostly slow and majestically mournful they also know how to wreak horrifying havoc, conjuring a permanent sense of existential dread and being swallowed by an inescapable nightmare.

Both albums for sure are masterpieces of the genre. "Backwater" with its four longtracks is more straightforward in its approach and deserves your attention for the closer "Nemesis" alone.

Their recent work "Obsidian Katabasis" pairs only three longtracks with shorter interludes, experiments a lot more with sound and songwriting ideas and thus gets more abstract and difficult to get into. But once you are over a certain threshold, you can only bow down in awe before this towering portent of decay, this frightening colossus of blackened doom. If you want your metal to make you feel small like a toddler with a cup of water fighting the lava stream of a volcanic eruption - this is for you. It most definitely is for me. Artistically on a level close to 夢遊病者 (Sleepwalker), yet also just one of the most crushing and humbling metal experiences of 2021, Fuoco Fatuo's "Obsidian Katabasis" leaves nothing to be desired. And a song title like "Thresholds Of Nonexistence Through Eerie Aeon" rivals Mournful Congregation in its cosmic funeralism.

VESSEL OF INIQUITY - The Doorway (2021)

As a reviewer it's inevitable to face one problem after a couple of Sentient Ruin releases: How many words are there for total nihilistic annihilation and obliberation? In truth most of these artist actually sound very different, with a wide range of individual concepts and unique strengths. But how can you possibly do that justice, especially when the label's own hype texts always take the most poignant descriptions out of your mouth before you even had a chance to make up your own sonically tortured mind?
Yes, again: This album is a world-ending harbinger of humanity's downfall.
On his split EP with Thecondontion A. White, the man behind this avant-garde black metal project, already extinguished the dinosaurs. Now it's our turn! Correspondingly Vessel Of Iniquity pushes industrial influences to the forefront. The blastbeats fire like machineguns over a battlefield of chaotic multi-instrumental cacophony, infernal riffs, horror sounds and weaponized white noise. And when the Vessel hits the breaks it won't give you any chance to breathe, as it fills your lungs with the filthiest black sludge of doom. Magnificient!

ZAQQOEM - Anarchic Rapture Of Withering (2021)

Ok, now it's getting almost ridiculous! And I'm not talking about the short twelve minutes running time of this EP. Quite on the contrary that span is more than enough for Zaqqoem to get their... uhm... point across.
That point being that yes, there can always be even more bedlam! No, there's no natural limit to musical abrasiveness! Yes, this is happening! No, your ears and stereo are ok! Or at least they were until now.
What a joyfully sadistic, disharmonic mangler is this Dutch blackened death metal beast! If this doesn't suck your mind into the void through a straw - congratulations! You're obviously evil beyond salvation. Welcome to the Sentient Ruin family!