Daredevil Magazine

Brian Daniloski of Meatjack takes a stab at the pure noise/drone sound with "Ecdysis" his first solo album and he pulls off a winner in every respect for all fans of the ambient and brooding noise frequencies.  I literally thought my stereo speakers were going to explode during the near Meatjack harshness of "Thinning the Heard" and it's opening crescendos of painful noise but eventually the song mellows out and connects into the more calming "The Place where there is no Darkness", that has a moment just under the three minute mark that honestly stopped my heart when I was listening to this for the first time at 3:00 in the morning in a pitch-black room (one of the essential requirements for properly enjoying drone…total darkness and no distraction).  The record starts to really switch things up a lot of these first two songs though.  "My House" has a more mechanized, almost Godflesh feel with programmed beats and doomy low-end before some unusual guitar noise and odd, distorted vocals really make your head start to feel fuzzy.  This song even lights up some serious Sabbath haze at times that really added to the chaos going on.  "Drag the Carcass" is another completely out there foray into heavy, droning sludge atmospheres at times with distorted vocals or some type of crazy samples that are impossible to even try and decipher.  Closer "Dies Irae" ends things off perfectly with another song that splices together strange noises with slow, completely Sabbath-y riffs that just reek of smoky doom and stoner haze and then before you know it the song ends abruptly while you are still stuck in a state of hypnosis by the riffs and the album is over on an incredibly cryptic note.  All in all this is a fantastic debut of deep, droning atmospheres that should definitely make waves in noise/drone scene.  This makes a great double-header along with the new Earth album and should appeal to fans of anything from Earth and Sunn to even Meatjack.  Another winner from At a Loss with great recording and packaging quality as always, check it out!ll

rating: 7 headbanging, hornthrowing dudes = 1+ (OVER THE TOP) - best possible rating

JS