Out Of A Center Which Is Neither Dead Nor Alive

Mean-Density Post-Industrial Doom-Porn:
Combine equal parts textbook existential terror and Amanita-Muscaria-induced Viking berserker rage, add a heaping spoonful of middle-shelf Dungeons & Dragons macabre, and a dash of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The result is Out of a Center which is Neither Dead nor Alive, the soundtrack to combing an empty beach in a mid-winter hailstorm or clutching your knees to your naked chest and rocking yourself at the bottom of a limestone cave while ruminating the trauma of birth. Minsk appeals to all your repressed unconscious longings to be stuffed into a punching bag and hung above the forge in Mt. Doom while Yog-Sothoth tenderizes you with a depleted uranium reactor rod. Despite the peppering of Pink Floyd synth-tweets, the hushed quasi-introspective monologues, and the cathedral-reverb drenched post-production, this is a parched and smoldering ashtray of subterranean sonic landscape, reduced to binary oscillation between 'just plain dark & foreboding,' and 'just plain dark & heavy' until the claustrophobia, the turbulence, the bruising and the radiation sickness all begin to feel normal - almost comfortable. Even through tinny clock-radio speakers Minsk would make Tool sound like Simon & Garfunkel and render your allegedly "hard" Joe-six-pack fratboy radio mainstays into buckets of pulp. Still, this music is best heard when loud, where the elements of craft in recording can assert their contours. However formulaic the treatment of "insert-ominous-buildup-here," or "insert-haunting-d'enouement-there," in these sections the percussion work alone is a veritable tone poem, and I haven't heard sounds like those coaxed out of the string instruments - guitars and otherwise - since the Cure's Disintegration. That said, there's nothing particularly ambitious or challenging in these arrangements, even though they all may span near the 10-minute-mark. One field of technical mastery is as good as another - whether it's an uncommon wanking dexterity on your instrument, a massive cerebral hemorrhage of contrapuntal melody, or an expensive knob-tweaking savvy. None of them can ecologically replace a polemically driven need to create. Minsk seem to have taken the Neurosis track "Locust Star" from Through Silver in Blood as the Rosetta Stone of the post-apocalypse and braided it into an hour-plus RNA strand of To Mega Therion machinations. I'll admit that Through Silver in Blood was a difficult listen when I was 21. Now I just quaff it down. Those 70 minutes fly past like 15 and have me sidling up to the bar for another round (That's why tavern clocks are set a quarter-hour fast). It's as transformative an experience as Beethoven's 9th. Minsk's Out of a Center which is Neither Dead nor Alive is like boarding the Black Riders of the Necronomicon Caravan ride at Wally World: alluring entrance, immersive and dazzling theatrics, but all mere simulacra of the textures and traditions at which they seem to be hinting. And when the trip is over, you realize that you're not too far form where you started, if you've even traveled at all. The Rod-of-Asclepius-Ouroboros hybrid emblem on the album cover is more than just a focus for this record's pretense of mystical invocation - it's a map to destination: foot in mouth. Where intelligible, the lyric chants throughout this mid-90s Neurosis retro-virus are surpassingly limp, like lines expurgated from pubescent goth diaries and discovered in fortune cookies opened at random. Though not without its passing moments of crystalline elegance in its decanting-tears-into-the-abyss unmistakable-prelude-to-more-of-the-same, track five slams into its sub-climactic kick-it-in-the-head-`til-it-don't-move-no-more mode with the rock-rooster yawp of, "Face down/Bloodletting and forgetting/Exorcising demons/Exercising futility," never failing to jerk involuntary gag reflexes. Every time I hear the line, "We will sing an errant wanderer's song/Of blackmail, heroes, lovers and pawns," I can't help but ask, "So, who don't you?" And in this age of patented genomes and 11-dimensional M-theory, nothing illuminating abides in the refrain, "Wage war," squealed over a Sabbath-by-numbers dirge-riff. This record delivers chills and vitriol without putting upon its listener the onus of savoring nuance or deciphering a seminal vision. Neurosis-lite it is not, but of all the hypnotic post-metal bands to surface in the wake of Neurosis, Minsk is... well, one of them.

An organic and primal wall of sound:
The guys in Minsk got their name from the city in Belarus, which "has been burned to the ground on several occassions only to be rebuilt like a phoenix rising from its ashes". Well, how that description affects their musical statements I don't know. However, what I know is that Minsk is a great band from the USA that plays a great blend of sludge and post-doom metal, bringing to mind the earlier albums of Isis and Neurosis. Given four out of the six tracks on this album eclipse 10 minutes, they love to stretch out their compositions and build densely layered sounds with monochromatic guitar drone and multiple sound effects. Though they also have some really doomy moments akin to American doom metallers Grief in that they employ a rather mournful and repetitive tone in their songwriting without losing their hypnotic and often relentlessly heavy underpinning. Add to this a very percussive rhythmic drive which not only proves to be the focal element in the songs, but it also lends the album a very tribal and primal edge. Tim Mead's conga drums might evoke aural images of Brazilian local bands playing awesome tribal rhythms as well as the more refined drum beats and percussions heard on Dead Soul Tribe and Dead Can Dance albums. Minsk's songs often start slowly and they are crafted in an ominous tone where only strummed acoustic chords and distant whispered vocals are detected before the pounding, heavily-distorted guitars take everything by storm almost in an Isis meets Cult of Luna way. The guitar riffs are also somewhat similar to the stuff Mastodon would play if their songs weren't so defined and composed. Minsk has a more jam band feel to it. The guitars can drone endlessly as traces of electronic soundscapes and atmospheric passages underlie the main instrumentation. Mead's vocals sound like a tortured beast, but his singing is highly restrained as Minsk is more of a band about sounds rather than vocals. Often laced with ambient acoustic parts, the songs are hard to predict as they can walk the very sludge-ridden paths of grinding metal or simply dive into even more terrifying ambient avenues punctuated by dreamy industrial noises and moments of silence. "Narcotics and Dissecting Knives" starts out with calm acoustic notes and immediately transforms into old-school American doom metal, particularly because of its amazing drumming. Suddenly a violent twin guitar harmony introduces itself delivering riffs that are both evil and intense, and so persistent that they wail eternally. The relatively clean and narcotic voice turns into an angry, violent scream as jarring bass and guitar riffs cut through the peaceful track, borrowing elements of electronica, drone and avant-garde along the way. A quick shift of instrumentation results in a sweet melodic guitar interplay interwoven with dense keyboard textures. The song concludes with a rather lengthy silence. I think it is quite interesting how each song so easily connects with its counterpart. Best noticed in the ending of the 14-minute "Holy Flower of the North Star", Mead's indiscernible whispers bleed into the next piece "Three Hours" before taking on an acoustic guitar melody. Speaking of the epic track "Holy Flower of the North Star", it marries classical piano with tribal percussion that is incredibly complex yet also wonderfully easy to enjoy. Creepy sound effects float about the piece as the song slowly develops character and reaches its apex with the arrival of a thick symphonic backdrop, crazy drum workout, and a brutal vocal performance. The last track "Wisp of Tow" is jazzy, mainly because of the addition of excellent saxophone, and filled with dreary wind effects and even some Middle Eastern resonance. While the production isn't as excellent as some of the bands I've mentioned in this review, I think Sanford Parker has done a quite impressive job. Parker actually decided to join Minsk as a bass player after he was enlisted to mix and record this album. Minsk's Out of a Center Which Is Neither Dead Nor Alive is an album highly recommended to fans of experimental metal that borders on sludgecore and droning guitar walls. I am curious to see what they'll come up with next.