KEVIN DRUMM "LIGHTS OUT" (part of 5CD "Necro Acoustic" box on Picadisk)

Since i've already reviewed "Malaise" as a separate entity i've decided to hit pieces of the Pica box as the mood suits me. It's easier for all of this way and just a bit more digestible.

"Lights Out" is one of the most sublimely disturbing works i've heard from KD across his entire discography. There's always been a menace hidden in his work and there's always been an assaulting sort of evil to the heavier, more "blasting arctic wind" material but rarely have the two met on such even ground as on the four pieces that make up this masterpiece. "Unsettling" barely begins to cover it. It's hard to describe and you're really better off just listening but if you're here for some sort of feedback regarding the sound, then here: "Spraying the Weeds" is the lead off track and the title would be a little funny if it weren't so horribly accurate. This is what a shower of pesticides must sound like to unwanted growth. It's the tone of mass murder, all rumbling low end horror and death static. As soon as this fucker started to build in the headphones i found myself getting a little creeped out, and i liked it. This is some mean, mean shit. It reminded me a lot of the opening scene in "Blue Velvet" where the camera focuses in on the grass closer and closer and you get all the horrid industrial insect noises growing in volume as the images become more and more diluted and troubling. It's the evil lurking in the most beautiful things brought to life. There is shit everywhere-you're just overlooking it most of the time. "Lights Out" wants you to focus on it.

The rest of the album tears through similar terrain, going deeper and darker, culminating in the 20 minute epic of "Idle Worship." It's a dense, focused and extremely bleak drone piece, a forced drowning in a pit of belching tar. There is no escape, only a constant suffocation and the unrelenting thickness of hot, stenching death. There's nothing even remotely pleasant here. Again i'm in awe at Drumm's ability to summon up such blackened visions with seeming ease. I wonder if he has to even try anymore or if this is just where his head is at. I'm floored by this piece, seriously. It is so fucking evil, the only thing close is Skullflower's recent occultisms. Another high point for Drumm. Totally recommended.