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SF062
Art Of Burning Water
This Disgrace LP



1. You Won't Know Till You've Cried
2. It Didn't Get Any Better
3. Lacerations To Hands And Faith
4. Way Of Bastard
5. We Failed
6. Since His Collapse
7. The Live You Live
8. Way Of Snake

Art Of Burning Water were born out of the ‘white flats’ of Hanwell (W7) and the pre-gentrified homes of Hammersmith (W6) in West London in 2001. The sound of suburban alienation and misfit isolation forged an awkward visceral sound that was too punk for the metallers, too noisy for the arthouse crowd and too weird for seemingly everyone else. AOBW continue to plough their own furrow despite personal injury and often chronic disorganisation. with self-promotion taking a back seat to the importance of sound creation to combat the often ugly hardships of everyday living.
Like Slayer gone sludge, AOBW channel the prime noise-rock of vintage Zeni Geva and Godflesh with the more complex rhythmical riff obsessions of the Melvins, Keelhaul and mid-period Voivod. In saying that however, AOBW also adhere to the original punk philosophy of ‘anything goes’. There are no restrictions. Punk isn’t about Discharge (as good as they were and are), studded belts and crusty bum flaps. Punk is the heart to tell the narrow minded to get fucked.
“This Disgrace” continues the more spontaneous writing approach of third album “Love You Dead” with some emotionally draining dirge sections akin to a more budget “Children Of God”-era Swans, “What’s This For?” period Killing Joke as well as the “Souls At Zero” beatings of Neurosis. All subject to opinion of course.


Released 07/01/13.

SOLD OUT

Co-released with:
Riot Season
Swarm Of Nails

Ltd. to 520 copies on black.

Art by Geith.



Art Of Burning Water | Geith, Mike, Steve | Bandcamp | Facebook

Metal Ireland
Angular, sneery fuckers from Lahndahn town, The Art Of Burning Water have been toiling away for a decade or thereabouts. Occasionally they delivering fragmented transmissions of their Noise Rock-inspired metallic bludgeon when you least expect it from whatever bunker/dungeon/borstal they spend their time locked away in. They’ve worked in near obscurity for most of their existence. Which, to be fair, has worked in their favor – or perhaps in your favor if you’re hearing them for the first time here – as that self-same, almost hermetic approach has allowed them to fine tune their assault in their own sweet time. “This Disgrace” is album number four, and their strongest offering yet. With eight tracks in under half an hour, it strolls in, batters you and fucks off in the blink of an eye. There’s not a tremendous amount of fat on these bones, and they’ve finally delivered the lean,mean killing machine they’ve promised to for years. AOBW have the brain to brawn ratio bang on. The caveman ferocity in the riffing is welded to a super tight and musically articulate rhythm section for one thing, and the songs are designed to satisfy the ears and the gut in equal measure. AOBW do not simply flail around without giving the listener something to latch on to – just check out the surprisingly catchy “We Failed” for one, and note how it never sacrifices brute force even at the most melodic points (although “melodic” is a relative term here). “Lacerations To Hands And Faith” changes tone from a swift act to violence to a lurching dread, offering up a killer headbanging riff in the process that would make the likes of Old Man Gloom drool. That band are actually a handy enough comparison if, heaven forfend, you might be looking for one. The same slightly leftfield approach to heroically brutal guitar sludge, the same occasional indulgence in samples and noise – though AOBW reign that tendency in unless absolutely necessary. In the glorious Sleep meets Steel Pole Bathtub melee of “Since His Collapse”, they emit the same psychotic glee that the Hydra Head super group exude at their best. Overall however the comparison is more in approach than in sonics – and AOBW are very much their own men. Is this Metal Ireland material? Yeah. Fuck yeah, this sounds like metal to me – it’s the kind of music we should be classing under the “sludge” heading rather than mongos with Matamps singing about dragons and bongs. Nowt wrong with that at all, don’t get me wrong, but this is a more mischievous warping of the kind of elements at work in some of that genre. It fucks with traditions and delivers with a keen thirst for blood. But at the end of the day it still gets the fists waving and the head banging. Heirs perhaps to the throne vacated by the late, great Fudge Tunnel – Art Of Burning Water would probably just smash the thing up and use the wood to smash up their instruments. If you’re looking for an album to kick start your 2013 with a pair of steel toes, “This Disgrace” could be just the record you need. 4/5 ::: Jamie Grimes ::: 5/1/2013

Rock A Rolla
Let loosed from the wastelands of our nation’s capital in 2001, Art of Burning Water return with a savage new album in the form of “This Disgrace” This veteran noise making machine comes on strong from the outset, blasting out of the gate with “You Won’t Know Until You’ve Cried”. Its bludgeoning, gut-level intensity creates the parameters for the carnage that follows, where taut, angular guitar lines are merely lead-ins for a series of battering injections of brutal velocity. The unalloyed violence of “Lacerations to Hands and Faith” and “We Failed” simply beggar belief, fashioning a rabid form of blood-spattered expression as brusque as anything wrought by Unsane or Zeni Geva. Since the demise of Part Chimp and Taint, AOBW are the closest UK counterparts to these noise rock luminaries, and this staggeringly vicious album more than proves that very point.

Foxy Digitalis
What do you do when one of the greatest bands in the world release and album on one of the greatest labels in the world? That’s right... Art Of Burning Water on Riot Season. Although extremely welcome, it is a little bit surprising. Riot Season specialise in drunk as hell overdrive, gonzoid freak out noise rock of the highest order, whereas sludgecore thinkers AOBW are an outfit of pummelling metal precision. The results are dazzling. AOBW give IMO their best album to date here. Not only do they appear to be a metal band, they also incorporate a potent concoction of textural unpredictability that rather like the Melvins, Tad or Goatsnake twist out the sound into endless fresh and exciting forms. The guitar tone is thick and merciless, the drums relentless. When I first saw them back 10 years opening for Mastodon and High On Fire at the Underworld I was literally blown away. I thought they were the next big thing. In metal life spans are much longer, and it is my sincerest wish that AOBW find that big audience. But as long as they are making records as fucked up, huge and tone-owning as this, that’s all that matters.

Sleeping Shaman
London’s Art Of Burning Water mark their debut for Birmingham’s Riot Season (co-released with SuperFi & Swarm Of Nails) with the LP ‘This Disgrace’, album number four and the follow up to 2010’s ‘Head of the Tempest’ which saw the light of day via Super-Fi and Hate Life Records. I have kept an eye on this band since first being introduced to them a few years back by one of the guys from London based DIY promoters ‘I Hate The Kids’, who had hosted one of their gigs and thought they would be to my liking. Their sound is hard to categorize, their off the wall approach combines elements of noise rock, punk and sludge and thrives on feedback and discordance whilst delivering the entire package like a sledge-hammer to the face. With ‘This Disgrace’ they have managed to up the ante some-what, still sticking to the initial formula, yet honing their skills, delivering an extremely focused and intense statement which should definitely turn a few heads. Feedback and dissonant repeated phrases open proceedings on ‘You Won’t Know Till You’ve Cried’, some (German?) vocal samples kick in and then we are hit with the opening salvo, an intensely heavy riff which is interspersed with more off kilter guitar tones and scathing, tortured vocal deliveries which build in intensity before ‘It Didn’t Get Any Better’ kicks in with one hell of a crushing, techy riff that just gets me every time – low down and dirty stuff. From here on in they don’t really let your attention drift very far at all; ‘Lacerations To Hands And Faith’ has simply one of the best breakdowns I have heard in a good while, around the halfway mark take the already ridiculous riff and drop the tempo to a crushing pace which will have people banging heads so hard as to induce whiplash. ‘Way Of Bastard’ sees out the A side with an explosion of feedback, distortion, vocal manipulations and frenzied drumming, the shortest track on the album clocking in at just over a minute acts as a brief, yet chaotic intermission. ‘We Failed’ does not mess around, a repeated drum flurry underpins the hardcore influence of the guitars and vocals until the piece breaks apart into a completely unforgiving, despair-ridden dirge then back again, a technically excellent piece of work. ‘Since His Collapse’ rears its ugly head next, vocal murmurings and a particularly melancholic guitar line that smacks of post-rock sets the scene, before yet more delicious tech-heavy riffage simply melts your face off, one of the highlights of the album in my book. ‘The Live You Live’ is rowdy as hell, definitely one to get the crowd going pit crazy, relentlessly heavy from the word go, choppy riffs and agro vocals beat you to a pulp getting you in the right state of mind to deal with the closer ‘Way Of Snake’. A huge wall of noise washes over you for the duration as the album comes to a close, blast beats are heard way off in the background while swathes of vocals are distorted beyond comprehension, simply kicking the last bit of life out of you as the LP comes to an abrupt end. Fantastic stuff and another step up the ladder for Art of Burning Water, make sure you snap up one of these limited 12”’s before they disappear!

Attn:Magazine
It was at King Alfred’s pub in Southampton that I first heard Art Of Burning Water, during a run of UK dates late last year. What I remember is this: a muddy gush of volume surging out of PA and amplifiers with crooked scraps of hardcore jutting out of it; guitar contorted into jagged stabs and discordant groans, vocals trampled mercilessly into the noise, drums keeping the spill within the vague, rusty constraints of song-form. Nothing too drastic has changed in the transition to the recorded format – the riffs have been permitted to emerge and protrude from within the sludge a tad, although much of the sound still abides by its status as a violent and obscure grey matter; screams buried by their own low fidelity, splurges of white noise adding an ugly serration to the guitars on either side. Such a sound is delightfully applied throughout. “You Won’t Know Till You’ve Cried” clears its throat on feedback before stumbling over one, solitary note for 90 seconds straight – panicked film dialogue raises the pressure until it hammers the door down, eventually bursting open as the album’s very first cathartic opening. Meanwhile, “The Live You Live” – this reviewer’s particular favourite – throws itself back and forth between winding, quick-fretted stampedes and pure atonal hurricane, embarking on a terrifying pendulum swing between fits of rage and sheer loss of control. It’s all over in 27 minutes, scorching the silence to follow with its gloomy (and thankfully momentary) tinnitus imprint.

Spoonful Of Tar
"AOBW channel the prime noise-rock of vintage Zeni Geva and Godflesh with the more complex rhythmical riff obsessions of the Melvins, Keelhaul and mid-period Voivod" according to the press release. I don't think I've ever read such an accurate sentence on a one-sheet before. Basically, Art Of Burning Water are the UK's best kept secret. For over a decade they've been bashing out top notch noise rock riffs. In the past couple of years they've really been stepping it up quite a bit and this 4th LP has come along while their last one is still hot. I'm not arguing though because it's great to hear these songs that have absolutely killed live finally being recorded. Although most of the riffs are pretty complicated they have a raw, fluid looseness to them which keeps them on the punk side of things. And, despite some odd time signatures, there's a swing and a groove to the music. Your head will be banging constantly although onlookers might give you strange looks due to your odd movements. Art Of Burning Water also have that other vital element - hooks. You can't really whistle the tunes but you will get riffs stuck in your head. And they don't mind repeating a simplistic riff now and again or chugging away on one note. Very satisfying. Generally it's that style but Since His Collapse is a bit of a change. Gets a lot more intriciate and math-rocky. Perhaps like their old touring partners American Heritage. Weird time signatures and abstract guitar lines all over the place. They do finish it off with a cheeky e-chug riff (although it's completely un-moshable). Fingers crossed they stick around for at least another decade.

Hellride
I’ve seen this name around, but don’t really have a lot of backstory on the band. They are on the superlative SuperFi Records imprint and now feature Kunal from noise-rock giants Field Boss (formerly known as Tractor…though I’m not sure if Kunal plays on this or not) on bass…so that’s enough for me to step on board! You guys all know by now that I’m an asshole that loves my noise-rock, and this is certainly that kind of stuff. These guys remind me of all the best Am-Rep stuff with progg-y riff witchery that calls to mind alchemists like Keelhaul, Geisha, early Today is the Day, and Voivod… TAOBW’s sound has that same kind of thickness and thrown the kitchen sink at ‘em mentality as of all the aforementioned acts, though This Disgrace operates on a dingy production engine twitching with all of the raw, crack house warmth of the Albini canon…if that’s your thing you’ll love it, if not I can’t provide any recourse. The trio sounds like a warhead primed for the poppin’ on the grinchy grimefest opener, “You Won’t Know Til You’ve Cried.” Things are barely coherent from the get go, a barrage of high-end chords smothered in samples triggers a stop/start ass fuckin’ of intangible song structure interpreted via dense, metal leaned riffage, low mixed vocal growls, rattling snare drums and frequent interruptions of screech frequency guitar workouts and just plain noise. Everything is welded together by the grooving thunderfuck of the bass guitar, which is very well schooled in the Dave Curran carpet bomb. It’s damn near impossible to call a play by play on this type of mania, but let’s just say it works…if this is the vibe you seek, you’ll be very, very satisfied. “It Didn’t Get Any Better” is the soundtrack to a slow descent down the maw of the pill bottle, torrential white walls of guitar noise and aggressive, punk schooled time-keeping giving a subtle knife in the balls reminder of Today is the Day’s classic “Sidewinder” during the song’s first 30 seconds. From there the band utilizes squalls of skronk to break up tense, sludgy knuckledrags that bend to the breaking point thanks to some tight rhythmic syncopation and staccato riff surge. Nothing pretty about it, but there isn’t room for weepy subtleties if you’re going off the deep end like this; the riffs and rhythms constantly change…so I can’t even keep score of how many body parts are on the golf course after everyone was killed on the way to making par. I’m not sure I would call these guys dynamic in the traditional sense, but they sure stretch the boundaries and utilize more than the ball peen hammer that killed the baby on Scattered, Smothered, and Covered’s seminal album artwork with the fucked-up freakfest that is “Lacerations to Hands & Filth.” Beginning with a bowel tickling, low-end drone as a launching platform, the track quickly whips into a frenetic, unstoppable scum boulder of relentless drum fills that lay waste to every part of the kit and scalding, minor-key guitar surgery. The changes really ring of Voivod meets Am-Rep in this one…a well-targeted, pre-midsection break climbing a tower of vast, hard-hitting climax riffage before letting the bass guitar go into one of those signature, brain-damaged solos that’s been a calling card of acts like Hammerhead, Unsane, and the Cherubs all these withered years. They even toy with a bit of My Bloody Valentine-esque, melodic lead guitar, but quickly jettison this idea into a vortex of fuck your mother riffer-y minus the foreplay. This is such a nasty band it isn’t even funny…hell, their idea of a relaxing interlude in “Way of Bastard” is a free-form jazz jam of psychotic guitar loops, samples, and electronically distorted drumming. Those hoping for a breather, get a middle finger and a piston to the head…lovely! I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard an indie-rock version of a Slayer song, but “We Failed” could be the closest we’ll ever come to that, a chugging piece of screaming, unrepentant riff and percussive thrash that almost repeats itself one repetition too many…until it culminates with a rather 90s sounding space rock groove mired in a sea of broken guitars and busted strings. TAOBW had me fooled that they were simply tuning their guitars in the introduction of “Since His Collapse,” but add odd tinges of bottomed out bass, samples, and drums for a shaky sense of groove. While this sounds rather terrible in the way I’ve written the words, it’s actually a big, bruising red herring that sets up the song for a number of twists and turns into more “formed” punk-inspired, noise-rock that totally lets the bass pluck out cool lead melodies which stick out from the soup of screeches, scratches, and scrapes. Next up, “The Live You Live” provides a solid split between the band’s Am-Rep worship and Voivodian riff metal, and finally the album book ends itself with the pure drone of “Way of Snake,” which should get annoying fast yet actually works in the context of making this album a start to finish experience that shouldn’t be sullied by track skipping. Iffin’ you’re the type with a steel constitution and an appetite for fucked-up prog and severe noise-rocking you should find a lot to enjoy on This Disgrace. It’s actually got me running to check out the band’s prior release Love you Dead from 2011. I’m not sure what else to say about it, other than recommend it to fans of all of the above mentioned dementia. I’ve already played it long after penning this review, and will continue to do so in the future!

The Sludgelord
Art of Burning Water is a Sludge/Crust/Black-Metal Band from London, UK. Ex-member Steve recorded bass on this album. He deserves credit as his playing is immense.Art Of Burning Water are one of the finest and most brutal Sludge Metal bands the UK has to offer. They have released a string of acclaimed releases over the years and have a formidable live reputation to boot as well. I have been a fan of this great band for a few years now and was quite happy when they released their amazing new album – This Disgrace – An 8 song and 28-minute brutal assault on the senses. Art Of Burning Water have always been rooted in loud angular Sludge/Punk/Crust Driven dark riffs with some very bleak humour fused into their music as well. This Disgrace sees the band louder and angrier like never before. If you are a fan of Swans, Neurosis and Tombs then you will find much to admire here. The album never lets up from the first song – You Won’t Know Till You’ve Cried – A 6 minute formidable assault on the senses. Put this song on full blast and be prepared to be blown away into oblivion. For a 3-man band, these guys love playing their instruments at full blast. Vocalist/Guitarist Grief – is a man possessed from start to finish. Shouting lyrics to you at machine gun fire delivery and with near perfect accuracy as well. Other great songs to check out are – We Failed, Since His Collapse and It Didn’t Get Any Better. They all show how creative this band can be with everything at their disposal. Their instruments feel like finely tuned weapons of mass destruction and they get the job done. No questions asked. This is a battle to the finish and for survival. It might not be the longest album around but it is one of the most powerful you will listen to this year. It is expertly produced and has a great punk DIY vibe, which displays the bands talents for all things bleak and dark to great effect. Art Of Burning Water are truly a force to be reckoned with and these guys should be mentioned in the same breath as such legendary UK Sludge Metal bands as Fudge Tunnel, TAINT and Iron Monkey. Long may they continue to release more brilliant albums like this. The UK Sludge Metal scene needs bands like Art Of Burning Water to show them the new breed what proper bleak Sludge Metal is all about. Immense and Highly Recommended.

Echoes And Dust
Art Of Burning Water are an absolutely ridiculous band. This London based 3-piece smash out crazy combinations of face crushing riffs, which if not dealt with properly could put you in hospital. Their latest offering This Disgrace, which was released on the wonderful Riot Season is no different and takes the band onto another chapter on their legacy of brutality. ‘You Won’t Know Till You’ve Cried’ lets us in gently with some single string slashing before the pounding riffs start attacking, overlaid with samples of a German conversation where a female seems to be in complete despair… maybe she knows what’s coming. The vocals kick in and we’re pulled right into Art Of Burning Water’s chaotic little world. The vocalist known as "Grief" is snarling and intense. I can’t decipher a single word he throws at us from his throat on this entire album but I can tell you one thing… he’s fucking pissed off! The opening track is almost a battle between unnerving samples and seething riffs. Some people might find the heavy use of overlaid samples a bit much but I don’t... it’s 2013, let’s play with technology and go places. From here they tear into ‘It Didn’t Get Any Better’ which is nothing short of huge. If this doesn’t mileage out of your heading bobbing neck muscles I don’t know what will. This band is in ferocity Disney Land, delivering insane riff patterns on a colossal scale. Imagine a bloody battle between grindcore band who are armed to the teeth with explosives against a noise rock band who have somehow gained super powers; that’s pretty much what I’m hearing. This extreme experience of a record slows down, speeds down but never lets you go. There are all kinds of boundary breaking hard rock like sludge and doom thrown into the violent mix too… simply sublime. ‘Lacerations to Hand and Faith’ carries pummelling us down the same vicious road, pure filth before a nasty sludge like break down. Think Melvins on fine form but made to sound so nasty you could cry. We then have a minute of unsettling industrial drums combined with disturbing sample before Side A has finished punishing us… phew I’m alive. If you bravely decide to go onto Side B 'We Failed' is unleashed. It rips into nasty sounding guitar before an exhilarating ermmm.. I want to say chorus but there are no parts of This Disgrace anyone could possibly call a chorus. We’re then given some rest bit at the beginning ‘Since His Collapse’ with a slightly “relaxing” breakdown and samples before we’re punched in the gut with severe guitar chugging. The track then morphs into a Black Flag like direction with a hint of Dog Shredder math metal experimentation. Awesome! Just to ensure they have destroyed every living cell in our brain the last track is a mixture of feedback and weird electronics which would make Whitehouse proud. This Disgrace is an absolute triumph of a record. It shows us a band not just playing heavy music for the sake of it but a genuine and successful attempt to do some different to everyone else. They are criminally underrated and this is guaranteed to shit all over 90% of heavy music this year. An absolute pissed off monster of a record!

Zware Metalen
Alsof je water ziet branden. Dat is waarschijnlijk wat de uitdrukking op mijn gezicht deed vermoeden toen ik voor het eerst dit schijfje beluisterde. De term sludge metal wordt door de band gebruikt om deze muziek te beschrijven. Termen die ik zelf zou hanteren: 'kakofonie', 'avant-garde', 'chaotisch'. Art of Burning Water komt uit Londen en bracht onlangs deze plaat genaamd This Disgrace uit. Het derde album in drie jaar van dit drietal. “Drie keer is scheepsrecht” zegt men, dus die hebben ze alvast binnen. In een klein half uur krijgen we acht nummer voorgeschoteld. Vrij kort voor een full-length, maar in die korte tijd weet de band wel een hoop materiaal te persen. Dissonante gitaarpartijen, krankzinnige vocals, (Duits) gesproken samples en beukende riffs worden gemixt tot een chaotische vorm van (hardcore) punk, sludge en avant-garde metal. Niet echt muziek om rustig je zondagochtend mee op te starten dus, maar ondanks dat komt het niet afstandelijk of pretentieus over. De band weet alles binnen de perken te houden, deze zijn alleen wat ruimer dan die van de meeste bands. Hierdoor blijf je het gevoel houden dat je nog steeds gewoon naar een band aan het luisteren bent en niet één of ander kunstproject. Een aanrader voor mensen die af en toe wel een muzikale klap in het gezicht willen, zonder meteen bij bands als Whourkr of Pryapisme aan te moeten kloppen. Art of Burning Water weet een mooie balans te vinden tussen bizarre uitspattingen en meer conventionele ingrediënten, en maakt daarmee bovenstaand spreekwoord meer dan waar. Luistertip: Since His Collapse. 80/100

Perte Et Fracas
T'as déjà essayé de brûler de l'eau ? Les maudits Anglais de Art of Burning Water ont réussi à le faire avec This Disgrace. Ils ont trouvé le secret pour allier le metal le plus vicelard, le hardcore le plus dingue et le noise-rock le plus épais avec un esprit malfaisant de tous les instants pour couler un disque de tonnerre et de feu. Le trio n'a jamais été réputé pour être la tendresse incarnée mais leur déclaration de guerre, la quatrième du nom, dépasse tous les entendements. Politique de terre brûlée de Zeni Geva, folie meurtrière à tous les étages, riffs de guitare démultipliés, samples du Malin pour rajouter au climat de peur, chants sifflant entre les dents, hargneux, noyé sous le déluge, rythmique suicidaire, en rafale ou lourdement chargée en testostérone de viande de cheval, c'est Londres sous la Blitzkrieg. Art of Burning Water a la clef du pouvoir, prenant tout ce qu'il y a de meilleur dans les musiques extrêmes pour monter d'un terrible cran dans la qualité de sa discographie, le commun transformé en ticket gagnant, le plomb en noyau atomique. On pourrait citer bien des Maîtres dans chaque genre. De l'aura de Dazzling Killmen sur Lacerations to Hand and Faith, du Converge et du Today is The Day sur le prodigieux We Failed et autres menus moments, des tonnes de chevelus agitant crinières au vent et poings en l'air au soleil couchant et des noise-makers aimant triturer les chairs et aller voir au-delà des standards sonores comme Hey Colossus et l'Ultraphallus de Sowberry Hagan. Mais il faut bien avouer que Art of Burning Water vient de décliner son propre royaume, fusionnant, transcendant toutes les perversions pour accoucher d'un monumental disque. It's not a fucking disgrace.

Infektion
Londres tem um efeito engraçado nas pessoas. O custo, a comutação, a existência sem face; desvanece o espírito tal como carne processada. O lado positivo é o facto de estas condições estarem na origem da criação de entidades como os Art of Burning Water, uma banda que revela uma corrente violenta de desafecto, que não ouvíamos desde o disco de estreia dos Unsane. Depois de uma insidiosa intro onde um único e silencioso acorde é mecanicamente reconstituído em infinito e samples alemãs abafadas, que actuam como uma blitzkrieg melodramática, nós somos atingidos com um dos mais violentos sons algumas vez gravados em cera. Feias, guitarras enferrujadas devastam com uma cascata de sujidade e um mitigar de força enquanto grita e uiva um fervilhar debaixo da superfície, como um psicopata numa máscara de bondage, e as coisas a partir desse momento só conseguem ficar ainda mais sórdidas. A maior conquista dos Art of Burning Water é o facto de eles nunca soarem como seria de esperar. Monumental, os riffs esmagadores são como agulhadas afiadas e direcionadas com uma intensidade focada, e a qualquer momento um groove é aplicado de uma forma que chega a ser suficiente para ser confortável. Eles dilaceram tudo e bombardeiam o ouvinte com uns loops disjuntos, com umas pitadas de ‘white noise’. Na “Lacerations to Hands and Faith” um zumbido desconcertante de black metal lo-fi dá espaço a um festim de sludge balançante; em “The Live You Live” é aplicado um pará-arranca que explode numa explosão de punhos bem hardcore; “Way of Snake” chega com uma vestimenta à Agoraphobic Nosebleed e abandona a casa com pedaços de Neurosis na t-shirt. Com apenas 27 minutos, este pode não ser o melhor trabalhado para se perderem na música destes rapazes, mas se estão à procura de uma intensa, instintiva explosão de violência que atinge de forma desconfortável o ouvinte… preparem-se porque estes londrinos vão arrebentar os vossos dentes, sem misericórdia. 4/5

Heavy Mental
This Disgrace est déjà le quatrième album de ART OF BURNING WATER est il serait donc bien temps que l’on s’occupe enfin ici du cas de ce trio londonien dont les tout premiers signes d’activité remontent au début des années 2000 (un split avec American Heritage en 2003). Art Of Burning Water possède exactement tous les ingrédients et arguments qu’il faut pour convaincre les ronchons blasés et fatigués des poussées métallurgistes/hardcore-noise issues de groupes tels que Deadguy et, plus particulièrement, This Disgrace est un monument de violence et d’obscurité. Sans doute le meilleur enregistrement à ce jour d’Art Of Burning Water qui pour ce faire a subtilement – « subtilement », si si, j’insiste – mis les petits plats dans les grands. L’écoute du disque révèle immédiatement un son énorme, dantesque, terrifiant (tout ce que l’on voudra du moment que cela traduit l’idée de chaos tellurique et d’oppression pachydermique) mais, et c’est vraiment très important, ce son méga surpuissant de la mort qui tue tout le monde ou presque ne tombe pas pour autant dans les travers testostéronés de la plupart des productions/enregistrements estampillés Kurt Ballou et consort. Vous allez finir par croire que je lui en veux personnellement à Kurt mais non, je ne lui en veux pas particulièrement, si ce n’est que son travail de producteur a enfermé trop de bons groupes dans un cadre trop précis, trop formaté, trop lisse, trop prévisible et, finalement, trop acceptable. Des oreilles propres au service d’une musique prétendument sale. Ça tombe bien, This Disgrace a été enregistré par un certain Wayne Pennel et avec ce disque Art Of Burning Water trouve le bon équilibre entre d’un côté efficacité et puissance et de l’autre crasse et noirceur. Et si le hardcore noise du trio a le bon goût de ne pas s’embarrasser de la production high-tech qui le fait bien, le groupe n’en rajoute pas non plus des kilotonnes du côté de la boue grésillante et de la marmite aux sorcières qui font peur ; autrement dit avec This Disgrace on n’entend ni un énième artefact ripoliné de violence en tubes ni un ersatz pure evil de pacotille maléfique mais finalement inoffensive. The Art Of Burning Water réunit pourtant toute les conditions pour faire (le) mal mais voilà bien un groupe dont les épanchements alambiqués, torturés et bruyants sauce hardcore lourd et vicieux imposent ce sentiment de respect attentionné et motivé par un mélange crédible de passion dévorante et de simple honnêteté. Et en parlant de dévorer, on ne saurait trop insister sur ces riffs complètement dingues et ces rythmiques assassines qui émaillent This Disgrace, un niveau de composition tout simplement carnivore de la part d’Art Of Burning Water qui s’est donc littéralement surpassé sur ce coup là, aussi bien dans son élément lorsqu’il s’agit de tout terrasser dans la lenteur que lorsqu’il s’agit de tout incendier et de tout exploser, radicalement (sans oublier aussi l’utilisation de nombreux samples et des interludes indus/bruitistes du meilleur effet). On vous aura prévenus.