Black Dada Nihilismus

I bought this tape around the same time as Baphometic Dawn's. "They share members," I thought. "Surely if one of them is good, the other one will be too!" Oh, how foolish of me. Baphometic Dawn are complete ass, and Bearing Gruesome Cargo are the sole bearers of quality between the two of them. Granted, this still isn't anything I'd go gaga over, but it does feel like a cohesive release with a fully fleshed-out style that actually kind of makes sense.

Bearing Gruesome Cargo play nassty black/grind with a capital ASS. It's raw, filthy, uncompromising, and insults your girlfriend while you're not in the room. If you read "black/grind" and your mind went to Anaal Nathrakh, stop. Not even close. Anaal Nathrakh are like the fucking Beegees compared to BGC. It's seriously almost offensive how fast this music is most of the time. I listen to this and I'm tempted to yell at the drummer "HEY WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING", because Jesus Christ. The riffs are nothing special, I guess - most are simplistic tremolo patterns typical of black metal/punk hybrids, though there are some strangely dissonant sections like the one that pops up a couple times in "No Compromise in the Defense of Mother Nothing" - but their impact is amplified by the absurdly raw and noisy production, which has turned the guitar into a big fat chunk of analog noise that happens to also carry melody. The shrieked (and occasionally growled) vocals are legitimately cool, though the quality of their recording seems to fluctuate throughout the release, which is kind of a bummer.

The entire performance can, and does, get pretty overwhelming. When the band are at full blast, it's basically a wall of noise with some vague bassy melodies stuck underneath. Fortunately, at 13 minutes, Black Dada Nihilismus doesn't really have time to overstay its welcome. Its two-minute songs blow over you one after the other like a steamroller parade and just like that, it's over. My pressing of this tape (and also the only pressing that anybody outside of Anchorage is likely to own) also includes a full live set by the band, featuring all the songs included on the original demo. It's also pretty nice, if inessential. It's pretty cool to hear the riffs in a somewhat less noisy context to hear what exactly is going on, but as a trade off, half of the songs don't seem to have vocals of any sort.

This is a decent release and I listen to it once in a blue moon, if only because I don't own a lot of actual black/grind and Bearing Gruesome Cargo are a good way to sate that particular urge on the rare occasion that it arises. I imagine only genre fanatics will think anything more of it than "pretty cool sometimes", though.