Friday, April 6, 2012

Kuwahara Reviewed by Wounds of the Earth

Kuwahara - "Kandyheart Afghan"
[Waiting World Records]

Kuwahara present us with some noise/death industrial in a similar vein to Stratvm Terror, Megaptera, etc. The songs employ deep, hellish drones to provide the foundation for layers of noisey textures. Most of the songs are droning and plod along slowly, though beats present themselves occasionally. There are some cool tracks like "Order of Primitives", "Feeding Tube", and "Scum Class" that have a good, industrial-tinged, rotten sewage feel to them akin to Stratvm Terror. These pieces are dirty and atmospheric, certainly residing amongst the darkest catacombs of the ambient genre, without being overly abrasive. Despite the usual ultra repetitive nature of some death industrial, most these tracks move and shift quite a bit during their duration; there are many different sounds introduced and they don't feel repetitive or overly long. The production here is about as good as you can expect from a style that relies heavily on drones and noise, although the track volume seems to fluctuate from track to track. The only thing I really don't like about this album is that a number of songs contain seemingly random noises which seem out of place and/or annoying to the ear. On "B-33920" and "Meat Bubble" the drumbeats sound totally out of left field and don't fit with the atmosphere generated by the rest of the album. Although "Meat Bubble" sounds kind of like old demo VAC or some other rough, experimental trippy industrial of that time. If you like "heavy" ambient and stuff from Slaughter Productions and so forth, give this one a try.

Much thanks to the WOTE Crew for the time, consideration and support! More info here http://woundsoftheearth.blogspot.com/.