JASON CRUMER "BURNING IN HELL" (Harsh Head Rituals)

I've been hearing Jason Crumer's name being tossed around pretty reverently in regards to noise so i figured i'd delve into his discography, starting with this little slab of destructo-wax from 2008. I chose this one pretty much based on name alone, and also because it speaks to the ideology i most favor within noise-the close kinship with extreme metal. It's hard for me to not think of Deicide's infallible "Legion" when hearing a title like "Burning in Hell" and to some degree i think that Crumer knew he had to deliver when he chose the name of his piece. Aptly living up to its moniker, "Burning in Hell" is a grinding 30 minute assault split between two sides that shows Crumer working with tapes and metals to create a shrieking gristly cacophony of unrelenting, howling manipulations.

Side A is all twist and churn, a chopped up mess of bleeding electricity fused together into an abnormal symphony of sick belch, a screaming stink of filth and stench bunched up into a thousand knots and tossed right in the listener's face. It's a ball of barbs and rusted thorns and it will cut you. Completely without vocals (never really a necessity for me in noise music, which is why i tend to veer away from most power electronics) this contortion of sounds nevertheless conveys a feeling of writhing agony, like something's eating you from the inside out, burning and scratching at you from somewhere deep, wallowed in you and eviscerating you from some hidden place until you collapse upon yourself in a fetid pile of blood and skin.

Side B plays a little more with dynamic and is far more successful for it. Things open up with two minutes or so of steady rumble, leading into another wash of electric violence, but the last half of the track gives way to a buried, steady hum of white-hot pulsing drone over which Crumer continues to layer all manner of shakes, screams and metallized scraping. I'm reminded heavily of the "thunder sheet" employed by David Scott Stone, basically an amplified cut of metal that creates a tremendous amount of sonic hell when flapped or shaken. Whether or not something similar is at work is difficult to say as so much of this sort of sound can be created so many ways, but whatever it is it's ridiculously effective. The droning buried under everything in this track is the key to the title, the neverending punishment due for a life lived in sin and wickedness. In a mere 7 minutes Crumer manages to paint an auditory image of infinite suffering, and while this material isn't incredibly groundbreaking the artist's mastery over mood is truly something to behold. He clearly understands extremity and its relation to specific genre; i think this record is a successful homage to metal and noise in the same way as Kevin Drumm's mighty "Sheer Hellish Miasma" (another work i can't help but feel Crumer was emulating a bit here). I'm way eager to hear more from Crumer. Recommended.