Horse Drawn Hearse

He seems an old-fashioned Victorian Gothic-Romantic kinda guy, this Mories of Gnaw Their Tongues, calling this early EP "Horse Drawn Hearse" and using a bland picture of horses drawing a coffin on the EP sleeve, but I guess the release wouldn't be quite as intriguing and enticing if the hearse were a Volvo or a Mercedes Benz among other car brands that might be used in GTT's part of the world for delivering the dead to cemeteries. This EP may have been one of the first GTT releases - it came out before "Reeking, Pained and Shuddering" and "An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood" which I have reviewed elsewhere on MA - but it's just as pitiless and horrifying in its exploration of human behaviour at its most idiotic and despairing. The EP almost glories in its investigation but Mories takes a neutral stance in what he does and the listener has no way of knowing whether he condemns this violence or not. In that respect the sleeve for the EP and the EP title itself also share in this neutral attitude, not passing any kind of positive or negative judgement on what appears on this release.

"The Behemoth Crawls Ashore" crashes out of the loudspeakers with pounding bombast and the screams of women. In their wake trail spoken voice dialogue, high-pitched drone wobble, black metal shrieks and clashing percussion. All this to overwhelm the listener's senses, flood the brain cells with shock and revulsion, induce despair at the strange, perhaps depraved things humans do to each other. Gradually though the songs withdraws into itself, the chaos growing calmer and more controlled but perhaps more intense, drawing down into a tightly compressed metal thump. Out of that point of singularity comes "Horse Drawn Hearse", steadily and stealthily at first, then with slashing beats, manic screaming and a steely whining drone. If there were any horses around - I don't hear any neighing or clip-clopping along the cobblestones - they've probably all bolted by now. Instead we have a recording of a minister preaching a sermon about taking personal responsibility for your sins and warning that sinners will be punished severely for their actions - the sermon can be quite scary if a bit quaint and parts of it are quite comic. This sets off a convulsion of pounding rhythms, doleful synth and coarse-textured bass that drown out the preacher's voice and the background screeching. It's as if Mories is making a connection between fanatical or extreme religious practice and the violence being meted out to other people. Given the wave of pedophilia cases involving priests of the Roman Catholic Church and the children under their care coming out into the open across the United States, Australia, Europe (including the Netherlands where GTT is based) and Latin America, Mories may very well have a point. Quite often religious indoctrination has an underlying hatred of women and by association people (like children, refugees, migrants) in similar low social positions, and this hatred comes out in insisting that such people must be strictly controlled in their everyday activities and must be punished severely, violently even, if they disobey or they fail somehow in their duties.

"Another Study in Bleakness and Despair" features some actual black metal singing amid spoken voice recordings, horror drone throb, pounding beats and heavy morbid rhythms. This is a more song-like track than the other two though there are still plenty of creepy sound effects. The big surprise is in the song's coda which is almost very serene and I swear I can hear angelic choirs somewhere in the background.

It's a noisy recording overall and the music might sound chaotic to newcomers but the more I hear it, the more I realise the whole thing is actually well controlled and very structured. The songs might not follow an actual song-like structure in terms of verse-chorus or have obvious melodies and rhythms that people can follow - the structure is more in the dynamics of the noise and how Mories manipulates his samples, the sounds and their textures. There isn't much obvious black metal influence except perhaps in the singing and the grainy atmospheres of the tracks. The style of the EP runs to experimental noise / industrial fusion of a very theatrical and bombastic kind. The risk with this style of music is that over time, when people's tastes change, the recording and other GTT releases like it may be seen as campy and histrionic, and any messages they carry are ignored.

Beyond the characteristic elements of the music from Gnaw Their Tongues (GTT), there is an aspect that needs further emphasis: the samples. Why? They vary … in content. Serial killer ones can be found on Die Mutter wählt das Todtenkleidchen, Reeking Pained And Shuddering and An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood, while religious ones are presented on Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh and on Horse Drawn Hearse; to present to the potential reader a range of different release.

Features a sermon on hell; bible book revelations; and death.

Their influence varies on each album; short phrases or whole passages are cited in terms of religious influenced parts. Murmurs, screams, spoken performances, GTT tries to vary a lot in terms of the way they are expressed. Each of them has a different impact on the music and so is their share in the song they appear in. In respect to Horse Drawn Hearse there is one longer part on Horse Drawn Hearse and it forms a breaking point in the entire album. A long citation in a sermon-like fashion is a clear contrast to the harsh screams and ‘brutal’ arrangement of the guitars and it may be seen as a counterpoint towards the aforementioned and for GTT so very characteristic ‘audible terrors’. Yet the very instant the vocals vanish, the torment starts anew, just as if it wants to gain a superior influence over the atmosphere again, whereby all ‘positive’ facets of life have to be annihilated and the listener finds himself confronted with an eternal nightmare again; like it was described by Dante in his book Divina Commedia and in which the divine enchants sound like hypocrites. Never to escape, never to be relieved… an eternity of the most gruesome facets of what man can imagine; this is what the art of Gnaw Their Tongues is about. Music for sinners, whose souls will never find relief and who want to have their burden reflected in the art they confront themselves with.

Like slowly beating bodies to a pulp and really enjoying it.

Five accords of an extreme distorted guitar hammer at the beginning of The behemoth crawls ashore nails into the feeble soul, who is crying desperately and in despair as the last one of them finally enters the weak spirit, which can hold the pain no longer. Yet after a short pause the torment starts anew and without any sign of mercy nail after nail is pounded into the hollow body again. Slow and hardly progressing is the music. A sick and sinister Funeral Doom bastard haunts the listener on this release. Unintelligible screams and babbling is present in the background and finally the typical distorted high Black Metal voice enters; a hellish symphony. The drums, except for the cymbals of course, sound very alike the guitars, such distorted are they and it happens that the listener has some difficulties in recognizing what instrument is playing currently.

Gnaw Their Tongues is different… this should have been obvious to the potential reader of this lines already, but it is not an easy task to describe their music. Unlike a lot of or better said most of the bands, this Dutch one avoids the use of song-structures in the common sense: verse – chorus – verse – verse – chorus – end. Linear, in the sense that each composition has a beginning and an end, would be a more adequate description of them, but despite this rather simple kind of arranging the songs, they are pretty ‘interesting’ or fascinating as they are full of elements; samples, noise, various vocals etc. All together they create in the mind of the listener a feeling of being on a trip in which horrible entities are passed, torments have to be endured and perhaps at the end a state of salvation is achieved.

Extreme slow droning funeral doom with paranoid shrieking on top.

In the music of GTT there is always something that tries to grab the attention of the listener. Never is there any complete silence in the dark atmosphere. Never does it calm down to a state in which the listener would be able to draw some breath over a longer period of time. One of the facets of GTT’s art is always present and tries to progress the music towards the next violent eruption (made of guitars and drums), which are so characteristic for this band. On this album the amount of distortion and layers is not apparent in the amount in which it can be on later releases. Somehow it is astounding to hear where the band has started and also how ‘calm’ the music has been once. Even though the music is quite sinister and very slow, there are clearly recognizable melody-structures. Also have fewer layers been used and also is there little noise present over the whole length of Horse Drawn Hearse; beyond the distortion of the guitars. Nevertheless is the sound a little bit noisy, whereas the ears have to get used to the style in which Gnaw Their Tongues performs their art.

A short description of each track:

The behemoth crawls ashore
A slowly progressing and extremely sinister song, which combines the slowness of Funeral Doom with the extreme vocals of Black Metal. Samples, noise and ambient parts complete the impression of a glimpse that is shed on the utmost horror.

Horse drawn hearse
Again is the tempo on a very slow level and the song is hardly progressing. A lot of different layers of noise have been used. In the middle of the track a narrative part has been added together with some organ ambient sounds in the background. Later evolves the song into Black Metal with the typical GTT noise and ambient characteristics.

Another study in bleakness and despair
The song starts with a narrative part and ambient/noise textures and progresses into a mixture of Black Metal/ Funeral Doom. Unlike on the preceding songs are clean vocals and screams woven together here. The whole song is kept quite simple in terms of the structure, but fascinating due to the elements which appear now and then.

Final comments

This is a fascinating release. Sinister and disturbing is the here offered art and it shows the potential of this Dutch band. What Mories, the person behind Gnaw Their Tongues, is able to achieve when the elements are put in the right constellation, can be perceived and ‘enjoyed’ on this record. The dark and disturbing atmosphere legions of Black Metal bands try to achieve and create so desperately, is being done here in a way and with a nonchalance that is amazing. This is one of the best releases from Gnaw Their Tongues and it is recommended to everyone who favours dark and sinister music.

Short:
Performance: sinister Funeral Doom combined with noise and screams.
Production: Due to the amount of distortion, guitars and drums show some resemblance.
Song-writing: Linear composed songs, which are peppered with a lot of elements though.
Positive: Atmosphere, arrangements in the songs, combination of elements (noise, samples)
Negative: Too calm recording, lack of catchiness, linearity of compositions.
Booklet: none
Length: 27:58 minutes