Long story short: my friend Alexey asked me for some more reviews from his label and after a quick look at the thick pile of discs to work on, I quickly realized being strangely attracted to the style of the cover and back artwork of this digipack CD without knowing an ounce about this band. I decided to write about it and only later did I find out it is the product of a Ukrainian act with another two albums behind. I got surprised why it's still placed at such a low level of popularity and esteem in the world's rankings of the aficionados of Black Metal. Sure, it doesn't deliver furious, traditional and ultrafast tunes all the time, but is it a crime? Not in my opinion, because I believe there are some days that we need total annihilating music and others when we long to approach something pioneering and progressive. I don't know if it's the same with Balance Interruption's previous material, still what I know for sure is that here the experimental or at least not TRUE Black Metal structures take 50-60% of the song, and that's a big step forward to stand out in comparison with most copycat underground combos belonging to the vast Black Metal world. Most of the innovations are obtained by recurring to a sax, but there are Electro, Noise elements, spoken inserts and a few more particularities, which, together with the relatively brief average length of every song (5 minutes), contribute it to make it a record easy to listen and imbibe.
Black Metal with ultra-deep Electro beats inserts and screeching noises in the mid-tempos is what's to be found is "Last Sunset Without Sun", as well as sax solos in a sad Jazz pattern and a guitar stroking martially before a Black Metal fugue, assorted demented screams. When the main part returns there are Black Metal shrieks and Death Metal growls blended perfectly, and there's room for another sax solo in the end while the Electro beats dissolve into oblivion.
A row in Ukrainian opens the title track, whereas the bass paints its way before modern Electro beats pop out in a deviated or acid manner. The raging and rapid Black Metal blastbeat comes back, the Electro sounds deliver an extraterrestrial mood until the bass goes solo in the middle of the track preceding a Jazz odd rhythm dominated by a dreamy sax with the addition of noises from a consumed vinyl, until a guitar briefly appears and the Ukrainian man from the initial movie sample starts complaining again.
"Not Survived to the Sentencing" is brutal Black enriched by screams, keys piercing the brain during the vicious blasts, a scorching axe solo, a horrifying finalè with macabre sounds, noises of chains, a lock being turned, and a voice that bodes ill.
The epitome of a variety of powerful and fierce Industrial Groovy Black Metal, "D.U.S.T.", alternates mid-tempos with obliterating blast-beats where the bass is constantly distinct; absolutely divine is the situation-changing of Techno Thrash Metal put before the Black Metal part resurfaces; a desperate voice not typical for this genre, a break and a bridge loyal to BM, an erotic Jazz breakdown, several frantic time changes are what awaits the listener till a scary ending brings without interruptions to "Suicidealer", a song growing gradually and exploding radically until punishing hasty chunks of Death Metal arrive, followed by crunchy Death Metal frames diverse from the ones just heard. Then it's time for quick parts with hammering noises alà Nailbomb go Black doing meth! A shower of effective Electro noises comes, as well as effected voices, on which screams are added on. A Jazz Rock portion with the sax waits for voices from the otherworld, then blastbeats complete the composition along with emergency siren sounds, tired and melancholic voices of adults and kids, whose effect is enhanced by Sovietic church singing.
Another track that goes fast and destructive from the early seconds is "Incubatum Conveyor", only to turn as Funk as the early Red Hot Chilli Peppers could; of course here there's much more: the intervention of the sax and later the crushing refrain repeated paroxysmally; the following stubborn Electro blastbeats are soon followed by assorted key sounds and a Black Metal where the drummer delivers an exquisite performance in different ways until the Electro beats and key touches reappear and the obsessive double-voiced refrain, too.
Concocting traditional, wraithlike and rotten ingredients respectively, "Morbid Soul Shelter" shows its ugly/beautiful face, severed by Dark Electro beats soloing and continuing with the rest of the instruments and vocals right away. Afterwards people do have to get prepared to the finest effected vocals of the whole album, stressed out by bass strokes that go on until the near conclusion.
Bass and frozen riffs, guitar trilling and drumming both human and Electro are the characteristics of the dynamic "Hypnotik Eye Kult Terror", a song that takes the traditional Black and gives it a modernized twisted edge; lots of variations, discordant mutations, stops, malfunctioning system sounds, an original guitar solo, swift accelerations, a final where the hypnotist orders the patient not to move matched with a prolonged low noise appear to be the most important traits of the second half of the song.
Fans of dissonant, shrieking, apocalyptic, anti-human pitch-black Avantgarde Black Metal outfits such as Dødheimsgard, Red Harvest, Shining (NOR), Ulver, Thorns, Absu, Sigh, Tartaros, latter Emperor and the likes, together with Mayhem die-harders, Dark Ambient and Electro connoisseurs, Naked City and Painkiller maniacs should all equally appreciate these brave, smart and well-composed 8 tracks, even if they come from divergent musical backgrounds and will have each different favourite compositions and passages within the almost 40 minutes of "Door 218". |