(Andy Synn signs up for a life sentence with Private Prisons)
The joy of discovering new music is something I hope never leaves me.
Sure, everyone loves a good bit of nostalgia now and then, and I’m a big fan of long-running bands continuing to put out excellent work, but there’s something about stumbling across a new band or album that just instantly “clicks” with you that just feels right.
Heck, it’s one of the big reasons I enjoy writing for NoCleanSinging so much in the first place, as it gives me the chance to keep up with new releases and encounter fresh new faces in the scene and then share that experience and my enthusiasm with our readers.
So, without further ado, let’s get nasty with the new album from Californian crushers Private Prisons.
Following in the filthy, blackened footsteps of the likes of Lord Mantis, Dragged Into Sunlight, and Primitive Man, this terrible trio combine gut-wrenching grooves and bursts of blistering blastbeats with passages of punishing, doom-laden riffs and desolate layers of droning ambience over the course of just over forty savage, sludge-soaked minutes.
The gloom-heavy soundscapes of lengthy opener “Homes” provide a relatively calm (deceptively so, as it turns out) introduction to the band, and it’s not until almost the seven minute mark that the true, abrasive character of the band makes itself apparent, as the final few minutes of the song build to a visceral, cathartic crescendo.
The smooth transition to the mournful opening moments of “Walls” throws an unexpected twist into the proceedings, the trio pulling back from the brink only to gaze mournfully into the abyss – letting their more ambient and melodic impulses linger and brood a little longer – before a torrent of churning riffs and seething atmospherics, each successive wave seeming somehow heavier and harsher than the one before it, is unleashed upon the unwary listener.
The shift into “Ghosts”, meanwhile, is far more abrupt and immediate, grinding you down with a brutal blend of bone-crushing distortion and ear-scraping noise, after which the sinister strains of “Woods” sees the group exploring both the heaviest and most haunting extremes of their sound, moving from bleak, simmering dread to sickening, sludge-drenched savagery as it drags itself out of the darkness.
What really puts Excommunication over the top, however – in addition to its harrowing sonic depths and grotesquely infectious guitar work – are the bile-spewing vocals of frontman Ryan Beitler, whose vicious, venomous delivery across the likes of “Wells” (five and a half minutes of unsettling ambient menace and unrelenting audio violence) and the anguished blackened intensity of chaotic closer “Drains” really needs to be heard to be believed.
But, then, that’s the case for the entire album… because as undeniably talented a wordsmith as I may be (cough) the only real way to get a feel for Excommunication is to listen to it yourself in all its grim, grimy glory!