Review Text
ON LIMITED ULTRA CLEAR W/ BLACK SMOKE & GOLD / SILVER SPLATTER VINYL!!! For a decade now, Vatican Shadow, one of the many guises of Dominick Fernow, has blurred the lines of rhythmic industrial, ambient and soundscapes to weave throbbing frontline communiques of war, terror, media manipulation and anxiety disorder. One of the most prolific underground artists of the 21st century, living his art down to minute detail, Fernow's penchant for seamlessly spanning underground sub-cultures finds Vatican Shadow now aligned with 20 Buck Spin for the first time. On the new full length album Persian Pillars Of The Gasoline Era, the deconstruction continues, with layers of collaged synth stabs, low end pulsing dread and ominous sand-swept melodies. And where Vatican Shadow often sets a rigid musical focus with each release, here the full multi-faceted embodiment of the project comes to fruition from hypnotic dance floor repetition, cold metallic percussion, martial bass strikes, and dark melodic noise. To further intensify the album Fernow brought aboard Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu, JK Flesh, etc) for the painstakingly detailed mastering process, adding the mysterious vibrance of cold morning mountain light that presages a conspiracy about to unfold. An unquestionable heaviness permeates the organizational structure of Vatican Shadow, never more apparent than on Persian Pillars..., and while prior devotees of the scripture will continue to find it approachable, here now the doors have been flung wide open to an entirely new realm of memorialist iconography.
