INTENSUS

Frantic, noisy, and rabidly intense, Intensus could easily be mistaken as random riffs thrown together and given equally random titles to create the illusion that they are in fact songs. As unpredictable as Patton’s Fantomas or Zorn’s Moonchild, the constant shifts in textures and time signatures on ‘Intensus’ are mesmerising. The solo project of Kill the Glitter drummer (and multi-instrumentalist) Eli Litwin, Intensus is a project that began in one recording session when the drum tracks for the whole album were improvised in one take. With the notion of keeping everything as spontaneous as possible, guitar lines were improvised over the drum parts to build the tracks. Bass lines were added and then vocalists were drafted in to contribute and complete the process. The result? Chaos. Beautiful chaos. Eli’s drum lines are like an amphetamine-driven Animal simultaneously studying jazz and extreme metal drumming crash courses. The guitar lines are crushing, dehumanised, percussive noise and utterly cacophonous in a peculiarly atmospheric way. And for vocals, which range from guttural grunts to growls to shrieks to screams to painful howls to sheer bloody anguish, Litwin has brought in a host of frontmen from such bands as Between the Buried and Me, East of the wall, A Life Once Lost, and a bunch more. From the ground up, the performances here are completely enthralling, the improvised nature of each track making them all the more striking. Brutal metal headfuckery fused with jazz improv probably isn’t the most accessible or appealing style of music and some may find this as a test that even Buddha would find intolerable, and that’s completely understandable. After all, masturbation isn’t really a spectator sport. But fuck that, there’s enough predictable shit out there to warrant giving this a blast or two and letting it grow on you. Just strap yourself in when you do.

LABEL:

FORMAT:

Metal Blade Records

Album

INTENSUS

Review by Jason Guest

RUNNING TIME:

47:05

RELEASE DATE:

4th July 2011

TRACK LISTING

1) Eskia Tu Daemonia; 2) The Intense; 3) New York, Yeah Scranton; 4) Colon Cleanse Your Sins; 5) Trampled By Horns; 6) Festering; 7) Outlast Robinsum; 8) Anomaly Detected: Supernova Remnant N63A; 9) The Pit of Hands; 10) Man Crusher; 11) Time Killer Shitter; 12) The Church Forever; 13) Anomaly Reached: Supernova Remnant N63A; 14) I Gave Up; 15) Axis Mundi; 16) I'm a Wisdom

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:

USA

"Brutal metal headfuckery fused with jazz improv..."