Nortt / Xasthur [coll] – [Southern Lord Recordings]

It’s the age-old story, monster meets girl, monster and girl
fall in love, girl realizes monster is indeed a monster, girl
tries to leave, monster writes love songs build on electric
piano dirge and shards of crackle guitar. That’s the first
three tracks of Nortt, the last track a more spacious synth
abyss float allows us time to ponder whether monster actually
ate girl. Meanwhile, Xasthur comes along with a sort of
Thin Lizzy guitar buried in the reverby grave of the Cocteau
Twins. “Blood from the Roots of the Forest” is the standout
with a lengthy hyperdramatic, standing-in-a-wind-tunnel intro
that gives away to more downed doom minor chord mope, but
then someone fires up the bass-drum pacemaker. On the closer
“Lurking in Silence” we see that Xasthur really wants to be
Mortiis sitting at a piano overlooking the cliffs. Good music
for a slasher cartoon. I hope KFJC’s Trix-ter is right and
these one-man metal bands unite into a true five-piece band,
there needs to be some serious in-fighting and friction added
to take this up a notch (or down a ring into the inferno).