NITROUS FLESH

REVIEWS

	Side-Line - Issue #45: http://www.side-line.com Tantric Terror inaugurates its catalog with this vibrating industrial album by Nitrous Flesh. As if directly recorded in the underground of a polluting manufacture, “Shadow Fracture” is an oppressive blend of frightening dark ambient and percussive noise. Repetitive horror elements give the atmosphere to this rather dense and uncompromising record. The kind of recording that gives you chilling moments when played in the darkness…you rapidly hear creatures crawling all around. An interesting project that reminded me from time to time of Siglium S’s best and harsher moments. This is music from beyond the grave. (TSF: 7) TSF
Judas Kiss - Issue #10: http://www.judaskissmagazine.co.uk "Shadow Fracture" is the debut release not only for Nitrous Flesh but also for Tantric Terror, a new US based label, who will be focusing predominantly on the darker aspects of industrial, noise and dark ambience. With so many labels out there, releasing a never ending spectrum of post-industrial releases in all of it's guises, it must be a pretty daunting time to take the plunge and unleash yourself into an unsuspecting scene and to do so with any unknown bands debut release takes guts indeed. So what do T.T. offer us with Nitrous Flesh's "Shadow Fracture"? Nine tracks of pretty impressive and torturous pitch-black death-industrial are the answer in it's simplest of terms. But in all honesty this CD isn't quite that simple as each track collects together an amalgamation of sub styles including the aforementioned death-industrial with dark ambience, noise, distorted beats, warped electronics and a strong ritualistic presence that is more than prevalent throughout the vast majority of this release. Added to this are well-placed samples culled from various sources, which increase the depth of the already nightmarish cacophony they have created, with murderously effective results. The whole aesthetic of the album is incredibly layered with pitch-blackness and an underlying element of uneasiness that emanates from the neo-occult atmosphere, which oozes from the album with a pure malevolence and blackened intensity. With such a powerfully strong debut release both band and label look as if they could start to carve out quite a name for themselves in the future, so sit up and take notice now.
Worm Gear: http://crionicmind.org/wormgear/ NITROUS FLESH - Shadow Fracture. After a long period of experimentation with industrial sounds, rhythmic noise, and darkambience via DrugMurderSexOrgy, James Geist elected to pursue his musical endeavors as Nitrous Flesh, a darkambient-industrial project with a strong, prominent horror-ritual vibe. The first track that starts off the album is "ALTARD", and provided a minimal but changing industrial analog drone, in which buried samples of moans and gurgles arise and fall in the churning. "NGANGA" has a very pronounced mid-tempo ritual feel with electro basses chopping in syncopation as the whole song lurches forward. After "RELLIK", the rest of the album takes on a stronger dark-ambient feel, with my favorites being: "Creatures of the Aether", with its clean, dark drones, swelling watery screeches, and clanging of rusty ancient machinery; "The Writhing Darkness", with its quiet wind torrents, zombie moans, and mysterious sounds arranged in a cutup manner; and "Cremation Ground", alternating between noisy and clean analog currents with some other-worldly rhythmic pulse that sounds like some death mating call, hard to describe. This is quite a stellar release of full-bodied noise ambient with a myriad of short and tasteful samples interwoven through. Though I am not familiar with a lot of ritual releases by artists like Zero Kama, Hybryds, and Nekrophile releases, I have read a lot of favorable comparisons of Nitrous Flesh to them; so if you're definitely a fan of those bands, then you must get this CD. -- Stephen Klusza
Black Magazine - Issue #34 Cooler Electro-Industrial aus Denver in Colorado/USA? Ja, auch das ist möglich … und je länger ich mir "Shadow Fracture" von Nitrous Flesh anhöre, je mehr ziehe ich Vergleiche zu den letzten Veröffentlichungen der Hybryds (in der krachigen Phase). Nitrous Flesh ist das Solo-Projekt von James Geist, der hier eine düsterbedrohliche Mischung aus Electro aus Industrial präsentiert und diese durch rituelle Elemente ergänzt. Das Resultat is eine brodelnde Lärmorgie die äusserst perkussiv ausfällt. Das Ganze mag nichts Neues sein, aber etwas derartig Cooles habe ich nich schon lange nicht mehr zu hören bekommen. Nachdem die zahlreichen Veröffentlichungen von Cold Meat Industry in den letzten Monaten duetlich an Innovation und Qualität verloren haben, darf man für einen Newcomer wie Nitrous Flesh echt dankbar sein. Das Album wirkt an keener Stelle langweilig oder abkupfert, sondern überzeugt vor allem durch Eigenständigkeit und eine Athmosphäre, die tief unter die Haut geht … apokalyptisch und betörend zugleich. Auch die zweite Voröffentlichung "Walpurgisnacht" kann da ohne Abstriche mithalten und gerade der Titeltrack "Walpurgisnacht (Witche's Sabbat)" ist ein echtes Schumanker!! Maine Wertung: 8 von 10 möglichen Punkten . (T.W.)
Industrial.org: http://industrial.org Being an almost evangelical atheist (to mix the metaphors up a bit), I find it a tad strange referring to anything as ritualistic but in the case of Nitrous Flesh, images of dirty sweaty drugged up people in PVC clothing are never that far away despite the fact that sonically this release is mostly comprised of death industrial and harsh ambient portrayals. There's no overt religion or even that much gothic architecture but the way it curls around your senses displays the same relentless cyclic reasoning that burns behind the eyes of a Jehovah Witness or skewered fakir. While they may or may not be suspended from hooks like some red and bleeding Crash Worship, it does create a hypnotic suspension of disbelief that drives you on deeper into a trancelike state ripe for nasty suggestions. The disc is a long one, almost 70 minutes in fact spread amongst 9 tracks. Instrumentation varies quite a bit but tends to leave tracks of grit and grime though the odd distorted sine kick swells up during the more rhythmic moments earlier on in the recording. The percussive elements have a pitched down, almost tracker type sensibility to the them what with the noose tight bandwidth restrictions that seem to have been placed on them. It's not lo-fi at all, just skrungy with its sampling choices which personally I rather like. The opening track for example sounds like a mix between Winterkalte and Vedisni if you can imagine such a thing. Filtered noise fronts, often reversed and swooping like bloody minded carrion feeders erode away the listener's resolve and an almost Atrax Morgue type delay based construction approach is demonstrated on tracks like "Rellik". It's no where near as brutal mind you but I do find the sparseness of the one shots and layering quite satisfying and the horror show vocal samples merge like an arterial path after a high dose of blood thinners and escape without any cheese stains on their silk shirts. "Shadow Fracture" is definitely an interesting exploration, a hand drawn map spidered with scrawled little notes and off-center concentric circles around prominent industrial centers and many darker, forbidden places. At some points Telepherique style deep space emanations mysteriously bubble up from the bottom of a murky swamp on the outskirts of some abandoned landfill site, each eruption of negative ion heavy plasma bringing further unwanted attention from the damaged, poisoned fauna crawling and staggering about looking for sustenance. Next on the itinerary is some channeling of war dead in the bombed out remnants of a city about to undergo redevelopment. "Cremation Ground" for example is spot on with its long delay lines acting like inward pointing rebar spires driving each forlorn wail and smoke choked cry further into blackened cavernous subway tunnels and sewer systems as the bulldozers cover them over with concrete sand and contaminated soil. The live track "Wormworld" (straight from the board by the sound quality) throbs with a little of the otherworldly energy of some of the Afe Records acts, like standing looking up at a glowing transformer not realizing you are moments away from a final dance when the cannister explodes and the severed cable makes contact with your body. About the only detriments really are a few abrupt edits where the seams of the sampling are just a little too exposed perhaps, the outlines of a wave editor or simple sequencing setup barely visible though this is very much an issue of taste. I actually really like the final track "Temporal Vortex" but I'd be amiss if I didn't note that it sounds a little like the opening to a classic Pink Floyd track, the threat to cut you into tiny little pieces never quite escaping their lips. But these are minor gripes at best and considering they are the most I could muster, of little import to the final result. This is a solid release and one that definitely suggests to me that Nitrous Flesh will be of continued interest in the future. ~ moron
Dark Entries - Issue #46/47: http://www.darkentries.be We recently found a cd in our mailbox from the freshly founded American label Tantric Terror. For now, the label only shelters label manager James Geist's industrial project Nitrous Flesh, of which 'Shadow Fracture' is the debut album. And it's a pretty strong debut as well. I won't say that Nitrous Flesh is the 'not to be missed revelation of the year', but the 9 tracks presented on 'Shadow Fracture' are quite convincing. The music we hear can be split up into two styles. On the one hand there are tracks like 'Altard', 'Nganga', 'Rellik' or 'Temporal Vortex', that remind of e.g. morgenstern or early synapscape. These tracks are built around a mid-tempo, and a bit ritual rhythm around which all kinds of sharp sounds and scraping noises are created. Gently tapping your foot or nodding your head is very much allowed at this point. The other tracks, such as 'Creatures of the Aether' or 'The Writhing Darkness' can be described as dark horror soundtracks. You know the like; some kind of windy atmosphere with all kinds of threatening sounds and samples. The American werewolf in England growls quite nicely in 'Rellik' and the door squeeks happily in 'Wormwould'... it's all supposed to sound macabre and scary, but for that it's a bit too obvious. When it comes to industrial horror atmospheres, we prefer the subtleties of darkmaster Ah Cama-Sotz for now, but if Nitrous Flesh further developes his style, the result might come very close to that. More info about this fine debut can be found at www.tantricterror.com [PW - translated by Wim P.]
Aural Pressure: http://www.auralpressure.com/ "Shadow Fracture" opens with the fantastic track "Altard"; slow, reverberating, rhythmic electronics over a pulsating drone, progressively becoming more distorted. Layers weave over and under one another, fading in and out with quiet moments. Overall a very absorbing piece which would appeal to fans of Sonar; as would "Nganga" with its mid-tempo, harsh rhythmic beats. "Rellik" features overlayered electronics with strange voice samples reminiscent of pigs! Repetitive with cuts and glitches. I think this song would be fantastic as an instrumental piece. "Creatures of the Aether" is a dense, rumbling dark ambient piece bringing to mind the old-school CMI sounds (e.g. Archon Satani, Raison D'Être or Megaptera), or Lustmord; very cold and tense with soaring electronic samples and reverbs. A beautiful track and a long one at 11mins. Also comparable are the tracks "Wormwould" (another long piece at 13mins) and "Cremation Ground". "The Writhing Darkness" is quite an experimental track in comparison to the rest of the album: clanks and sporadic percussion with clicks and bumps with panning waves and reverbs. More of an exercise in sampling than a song. I'm not very keen on the track "Corpus Callosum" which I would put down to the keyboard sound; but this is a short track and should not detract from the other excellent tracks on this album. The grand finale is "Temporal Vortex", a blistering track with vibrating and slightly distorted electronic rhythms. A well-structured and engrossing piece which feels more like a song than most of the other tracks. Similar in places to Inade. A beautiful ending. ~JLM