Gnaw Their Tongues - Hymns For The Swollen Silent

2017 release. A shambling monstrosity woven from charred bones and infernal technology, stitched with gristle and exposed wiring, Hymns For The Broken, Swollen And Silent lurches like a grotesque assemblage of tortured flesh and mangled machinery, revealing the latest nightmare from Dutch fiend Gnaw Their Tongues. After more than a decade, they continue to disturb with their uniquely dark and depraved blend of black metal, industrial and noise, and this eight-song album shows them to be in prime killing mode. In the wake of a series of live performances starting in 2015, this new material from mastermind Mories (Seirom, Cloak Of Altering, Mors Sonat) finds him tapping into a heavier, more violent rhythmic element as well as a more pronounced use of synthesizers, yet another step in the evolution of GTT's sound. Throughout the album, the harsh drum programming offers a mixture of cacophonous blast beats and grueling, glacial detonations while signature unsettling samples and blasts of orchestral power weave throughout the mix, turning each track into a seething mass of claustrophobic horror. Eruptions of ultra-frenzied blackened blast and floor-shaking depth-charge reverberations, ravenous, psychotic vocals and swells of choral despair, distorted electronics and gut-churning bass riffs, mournful horns and weirdly layered female operatic singing-this release delivers on the promise of chaotic horror that one expects from Gnaw Their Tongues, evoking foul, corrupted imagery while also streaked with striking moments of warped, morbid beauty.