Gaza He Is Never Coming Back
by Alissa Ordabai
Staff Writer
Minimalist industrial clang, spare booming chords, frantic percussion and growling that sounds like the last dying cries of a fallen warrior, all join in from the word go to create an air-tight atmosphere which the band will grapple with throughout the album – abandoning it, then embracing it again, then rejecting it, and finally uniting with it in an incestuous marriage of grindcore, grime, and hardcore.
Crude and primordial, but at the same time tense, precise, and unassailable, on their second album Gaza are showing off not only their ability to create a masterfully deliberate claustrophobic setting, but also their gift for escaping from a prescribed formula.
More than just an exercise in traditional grime-meets-grindcore values, the record soon goes from the initial vibe of airless suffocation straight into full-on hallucination with ominous industrial noises and echoes of psychedelia taking the listener on an intentionally spooky trip.
But the band doesn’t let it all just dissolve and melt down. The standout “The Meat of a Leg Joint” moves the proceedings on, back to Gaza’s signature raw reality, with frantic riffing and a cacophony of clashing guitar parts fighting for sonic space on top of polyrhythmic drumming. Add to this singer Jon Parkin’s frenzied growling punctuated by high screams of the lead guitar, and you will appreciate how brilliantly Gaza have managed to get away from the album’s initial premise.
Starting from a place which feels like an airless tomb, the record still manages achieve perfect balance, artfully employing tension and release and alternating frantic parts with slow ominous breathers. Things are finally brought to culmination on the final track, “Carnivore”, a tense, angsty piece of music where Gaza finally let it all loose. Relentless high-pitched industrial noise builds up the atmosphere from alarm to hysteria as the album reaches its climax to the sound of frantic chanting, driving home the message that nothing can be suppressed forever – both in art and in society.
To sum all up, this is a perfect metal album – unpretentious, clever, and highly charged, delivering in equal measures guts, vision, and a sense of adventure. Buy.
Label: Blackmarket Activities
Track Listing:
1. It is How It’s Going to be
2. The Kicking Legs
3. Bishop
4. The Biologist
5. Windowless House
6. He is Never Coming Back
7. Canine Disposal Unit
8. The Anthropologist
9. The Meat of a Leg Joint
10. The Astronomer
11. Tombless
12. The Historian
13. Carnivore
14. Hidden Track
Hardrock Haven rating: 7/10