Forum.RttP{Hirudinea/Watchmaker - Metal Maniacs review Oct. 07}

Hirudinea/Watchmaker split - Bestial Onslaught Productions

If the mass amounts of cognitive dissonance, psychic confusion and symbolic violence that have gone into the artistic creations found on this split cd could be harnassed by the world's competing military powers, this planet would end up little more than a smoking ball of shit floating in space. Such is the ra(n)ge of emotion here: Darkness, despondency, hopelessness, disgust - with mass extermination as the only and ultimate solution. Oh sure, most already know that Watchmaker's punishing brand of grind-punk-thrash-death can kill small gatherings of people at fifty paces on an off-day, but this Hirudinea lot certainly up the nuclear capability of the disk a few notches. Or are they just pissed at the continuing chaos created by paved-over horse-and-buggy trails disguised as thoroughfares and The Big Dig?

Hirudinea, and Watchmaker are both from Boston and while there's no concrete evidence that the venomous anger emanating from this release doesn't spawn from the absolute frustration Bostonians deal with in attempting to navigate through the motorized pea soup they call traffic up there, you never can be too sure. When the dual throat-shredding attack of Hirudinea's Mike and Jay Beckwith bellow, "Always holding on/Get the fuck off...Just kill us!," are they philosophically discussing the perils of euthanasia or talking about just trying to get from Faneuil Hall to Fenway Park in less than an hour? Is Watchmaker's Brian Livoti screeching "Nuked To Ashes" his societal premonition or a solution to getting vehicles out of his fucking way so he won't be late for work?

Actually, Hirudinea's vastly entertaining cross of grind, power violence, 80's UK punk, black/death metal and crossover breakdowns - imagine Bolt Thrower, Man Is The Bastard, Discharge, Nunslaughter and old Norse black metal - is tempered with what could be interpreted as lyrical contradictions where in one song the band seem to decry religion and it's followers ("As Good As Dead") while asking for a higher power to exterminate humanity the next track ("Just Kill Us"). But these things are always open to interpretation. What isn't, however, is how Hirudinea batter the listener with acrimonious and irascible lo-fi mayhem; the militaristic drum patterns of "This I Command" give the endtyme riffs that much more potency while the revved-up Obituary grooves of "As Good As Dead" could start a killing spree.

Watchmaker will always be an accquired taste. If you can't stomach the sound of everything you hold sacred collapsing around your ears in a flaming, bloody heap, then avoid this chaotic fuckfest. Their sound is that of death-grind crossed with the likes of Whitehouse and Wold taken to an illogical conclusion. There are actually moments when it sounds like the guitars were recorded through a phone and, like Sodom's In The Sign Of Evil EP, that they might not even be playing together on parts of "Hoist Upon Canard." But somehow it manages to work; the unrestrained nature of the band is held together by Livoti's banshees-raping-demons voice and the fact these dudes have hateful sincerity oozing from every fucking pore. [www.bestialonslaught.com]

- Kevin Stewart-Panko

http://www.myspace.com/hirudinea
http://www.myspace.com/watchmaker