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I've been a fan of Wilt ever since Matt Gibney (RIP) sent me a copy of the The Black Box Aesthetic: Zeitgeist 1 CD that he had released on his label The Rectrix. The combination of dark ambience, organic sounds, and industrial creep that Wilt delivered on that (and other early albums) had me captivated, but I lost track of the project for a few years as the labels that were releasing Wilt's albums were largely off of my radar. It wasn't until late last year that I rediscovered Wilt after member James Keeler sent me a bunch of his recent releases to check out for Crucial Blast. Not only did I flip out over the newer Wilt stuff that came in the package, which now had a tactile metallic heaviness in addition to the always present waves of black sound, but I was also introduced to a band called Hedorah that was on a split cassette that James included a copy of. The Hedorah tape (a split with The Fortieth Day) felt like a boot to the skull when I popped it into the office stereo, an oozing syrup-blast of blackened doom metal delivered over sickening downtuned guitar riffs that seemed to drift in and out of phase, smears of filthy electronic noise, and crushing monotonous drum machine beats. Not one ray of light, nor ounce of melody is anywhere to be found. Just plodding, utterly hypnotic, nauseatingly crushing industrial doom. That tape immediately became one of my favorite items that James sent, and after writing him back to ask what the deal was with this band Hedorah, it turned out that the band is actually the "doom metal" alter-ego of Wilt, with both James Keeler and Dan Hall of Wilt making up the band. It also turned out that they had some surplus recordings that they were looking for a home for, and in an instant this collection of Hedorah recordings was birthed, screaming and covered in black oil into this world.
Taking it's name from the aerial pollution god that faced off against Godzilla in the Japanese psychedelic kaiju classic Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971), Hedorah is fully documented on this handmade disc that combines the track "From Beyond" from the split cassette with The Fortieth Day, "Planet Of Doom" from the Dr. Who Vs The Noise compilation, and five unreleased tracks. Hedorah proves to be a multi-tentacled beast: "Crystal Smoke" evokes a smog-ridden wasteland laced with acid-rock guitar soloing, pummeling industrial bass, and trance inducing beats, and ends up as some kind of grim krautrock jam. "Self Medicated" emits looping dialogue and whirring drones over monstrous throat chanting. "Hyperbolean" combines terrifying screams converted to echo-chamber hiss and overdriven, pummeling metal riffage thrust so far into the red that it sounds like there are flaps of speaker material smacking up against yer eardrums. The twenty-minute "Black Walls" is the apex of distortion though. That final track starts off as a sheet of obsidian ambience, a shimmering drone streaked by whirring noises, but then the riff appears, a massive three-chord doom dirge looming over the horizon, massively distorted and plodding, a hateful obelisk of fuzz lumbering through the increasingly violent blasts of feedback and distorted vocal noise that's shot across the soundfield. Ominous synth melodies and dank cave ambience appear later on, but become devoured by vicious feedback lashings a la Prurient and the return of that bottomless crushing doom dirge. Heavy is an understatement.
Packaged in our signature 3-panel Crucial Bliss glossy sleeve, which has been designed by Lord Keeler himself. The disc is attached to the inside of the jacket on a plastic hub, and there is also a small insert card included in the package. Released in an edition of 250 copies.
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