(written by Islander)
If there were a Cookbook for Cataclysm you might find a recipe that called for a base stock of hurricane, whisking in blizzards blown by the four winds, a strong helping of avalanche, handfuls of human viscera (explosively ejected), a seasoning of sewage to taste, and everything drenched in lethal fissionable material hot enough to glassify sand and stone. Listening to the music of Uranium, it’s easy to imagine they found that recipe but then altered it for transmutation into sound because it wasn’t sufficiently ugly or painful.
There are other ways of trying to preview the music. Sentient Ruin Laboratories calls Uranium an “American nuclear black industrial weapon”. They call the monstrous tracks on Uranium‘s new album Corrosion of Existence “plutonium-fueled auditory terror” and “an unimaginable cauldron of destruction”.
The label also makes comparative references to the likes of Godflesh, Swans, Brighter Death Now, Gnaw Their Tongues, and Merzbow, but also such black/death metal bands as Teitanblood, Portal, and Irkallian Oracle. And then they add this:
“A gigantic gaping void is blown out into the architecture of existence, revealing a massive radioactive wound seared with layer upon layer upon layer of caustic sequences and smoldering synth tapestries…. Every composite element of existence from single nucleuses, to atoms, to organic molecules and compounds like cells and DNA, all the way to planet-sized ecosystems are destroyed and vaporized in an onslaught of ionizing death radiating from Uranium’s all-devouring pandemonium.”
Notwithstanding the cookbook thing, we’re not going to try to top any of that. I mean, how could you? But we do have some further thoughts about what Uranium has achieved on their new album, with the prime evidence today being the record’s immense title song.
The album is five songs long. The first four are each in the 5-6 minute range. The title track we’re presenting is the fifth and final one, and it’s a 12 1/2 minute apocalypse. Among all the songs on the album, this one also best explains the label’s divergent comparative band references listed above.
On the one hand, it paves the way toward ruin with warzone noise and industrial pulsations. Bombs detonate, bullets fly, sirens seem to wail, victims seem to scream, the earth seems to throb, reports of devastation flow through what’s left of the airwaves.
That intermingling of samples and electronics is what introduces the track, and then it throbs forward, heavily booming but still broiling the listener’s mind with sounds both ethereally eerie and abusively corrosive.
On the other hand, the track becomes even more ruthlessly cataclysmic, guaranteed to satiate the most ravenous appetites for sonic ruination on an engulfing scale. Monstrous roars vent the words; drums furiously hammer; caustic radioactive spasms and shrill shrieking tones rake the mind; maniacal howls explode. The ground jumps; the air sizzles and sears; manifold sensations of agony take shape in the frequencies.
The song’s massive beats don’t let go, only briefly overcome by gargantuan blast-beat fusillades, but they stagger and veer as well as rhythmically throb. The mental scarring inflicted by the other ingredients doesn’t relent either. And through it all, those shrill wailing frequencies continue to give voice to pain and despair.
The song proves to be as haunting as it is harrowing, and as muscle-moving as it is mentally lacerating.
Sentient Ruin will release Corrosion of Existence on November 7th, on LP/CD/MC/digital formats worldwide. Find pre-orders via the links below, and also get destroyed by the first song revealed from the album, “Descent Into Entropic Death“.
PRE-ORDER:
https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/album/corrosion-of-existence
https://sentientruin.com/releases/uranium-corrosion-of-existence