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Hallowed Butchery: Funeral rites for the living

29/07/09 || Khlysty

One of the things that’s really gratifying for us contributors at the mighty GD is that your innermost desires – even those bordering on insane or obscene – are usually satisfied. For example, there I was, a few days back, pondering on the futility of being and thinking: “Now, if you put Dimmu Borgir and really early Front 242 to collaborate in covering Death In June, how would this joining-of-forces sound?”. Well, not a day passed before the Lord (that’s Lord K for you, the great ignorant masses…) answered my question, by summarily passing to me for reviewing Hallowed Butchery’s newest endeavor, called “Funeral Rites For The Living”. See, the Boss really cares for his underlings’ well-being and that’s why we happily slave off to keep GD the best site one can ever find in the whole Inter-sucking-net.

Seriously, though, when I finished listening to “Funeral Rites For The Living” (from now on to be demoted to “FRFTL” status in this here review; too long a title to be enjoyable or repeatedly written…) for the first time, that was the first thing that hovered inside my fuzzy gray matter: that the exceptional young man who’s responsible for this piece of music wanted to see what would happen if one put in the blender black –and symphonic black- metal, doom, industrial and goth folk, adjusted the blades on “big chunks” and pressed “on”. The final product is a record that’s intriguing in its inception, pretty interesting in its execution but a bit on the “iffy” side of things in its final form. Why? Well, basically because Ryan Scott Fairfield –he IS Hallowed Butchery…- mixes and mashes (not “matches”, nor “meshes”, just “mashes”) so many disparate elements from so many different styles that one cannot but admire his élan and audacity, all the while being perplexed and, sometimes, irritated by the final result.

On each and every piece contained in this CD, one mighty easily detect fragmentary influences of a legion of wildly incompatible sources, ranging from symphonic black metal bravado, doomish agony, industrial noisescapes, electronica madness to folk rock with gothic overtones (the last track is a very faithful and very telling cover/reinterpretation of Neil Young’s “After The Gold Rush”, ferfucksake!), to avant-rock and even further away. All these elements are crazily applied in each and every track, making them sound more like aural smörgåsbords–spiked with LSD, to say the least- and less like proper songs. Not that they are amorphous or something –on the contrary, most tracks have an admirable linearity in evolution and execution. It’s just that each and every one of them is like the composer tossed all restraint and compositional/arranging method out of the window and decided to go the whole hog and give us a package that’s really straining at the seams.

When all the disparate elements gel, one gets instant gratification through extremely dense and creative compositional prowess (check out the incredibly beautiful “Kingdom (Inside You)” or the imposing and insanely left-brained “Pantheon Enthroned” with its almost Barret-like acoustic passages). Other times, though, one gets the feeling that a) there are good ideas in here, but they’re left half-baked to die and/or b) this “and the kitchen sink” approach works more as a gimmick and less as a compositional instrument used towards some clearly defined goal. I mean, I like weird as much as anyone working for GD, but sometimes this gets ridiculous or, at least, extremely irritating (this coming from a guy who LIKES Gnaw…).

I would like to point out the great mastering job with which James Plotkin graced this record. Everything sounds BIG and NASTY, which is an added blessing or an added pain, depending on how one sees this whole thing. Me, even though I can enjoy some parts of the record and admire some others, I think that the whole thing needed more focus on some small matters, like economy and compositional restraint, and less emphasis one things like bizarre-ness and insanity. So, with that in mind, I have to say that the rating for “FRFTL” is…

6,5

Information
Released: 2009
Label: Vendetta Records
Website: Hallowed Butchery MySpace
Band
Ryan Scott Fairfield: vocals, guitar, keyboards, programming

Tracklist
01. A wake for the human race
02. Pantheon enthroned
03. Great north woods
04. Back asswards
05. Kingdom (within you)
06. The kennebec
07. Abolish the pulpit
08. The Kennebec (reprise)
09. After the gold rush

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