The One True Dead Angel

This mysterious album is the work of one Brian Daniloski, who is also a member of Meatjack. The opening track, "thinning the herd," opens slowly with shuddering drone and noise fading up as someone rants (about what I can't tell, but he sounds most agitated), until the song devolves into a drifting cloud of static and a simple keyboard (or maybe guitar) motif that's repeated over and over as noise washes over it. Repetitive, maybe even looped, sounds permeate the album, as the opening of "the place where there is no darkness" demonstrates. There's a lot of ambient sound on this album in addition to the inexplicable chittering noises, at least on the first two tracks; things get much heavier (big, thundering drums and lead-primer guitar) on "my house," while the drone action gets thicker and more intense on "drag the carcass." One of the heaviest tracks is the closing "dies irae" -- big, groaning guitar lurching through near-static riffs as sonic effluvia churns in the background for four to five minutes before fading out the way the album faded in. Nice. If you're looking for a particularly menacing and cryptic slab of death-drone, or if you're a Meatjack fan curious to see what he's up to on his own, then this is definitely recommended. The nifty album art doesn't hurt, either.

RKF