(Atmospheric / Avant-Garde / Ambient / Black Metal) Korperschwache - Evil Walks - 2011, FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Evil Walks is the first widely available Crucial Blast release from Korperschwache after almost a decade of smaller, limited-run discs on the label's Crucial Bliss imprint. It's also the most focused work yet from this utterly demented Texas duo that started out in the mid '90s as a pure noise project but gradually evolved into the weird, lumbering black-dirge outfit they are today. The album features thumping, minimal drum-machine pounding courtesy of the relentlessly decisive Doktor Omega, droning dissonant riffs that veer from hypnotic noise to dismal quasi-black metal buzz and RKF's narcoleptic croaking and malevolent sneer bathed in reverb and amp skuzz. Guitars hum and drone while the distant howling of wolves and ear-piercing screams drift across the background. The experience is a mutant cross between late-'80s British psych / drone rockers Loop and notorious improv / black metal freakazoids Abruptum. It's not black metal, but Evil Walks is recommended to fans of the demented underground fringes inhabited by like-minded bands Utarm, Wrnlrd, Charnel House, Diapsiquir, Brobdingnagian, Mamaleek, Wormsblood or Lonesummer. The CD comes in a full-color digipack with illustrations by Nicole Boitos.

Going back to the mid-90's, the obscure Austin, TX outfit Korperschwache (German for "organic decay") has issued a steady stream of releases into the deep underground that showcased a distinctive sound sitting at the strange nexus between the early UK noise rock scene, the skull-rupturing power of Japan's more extremist noise artists, the massive gravitational pull of the formless guitar crush of bands like Earth and the Melvins at their most art-damaged, and, in more recent years, a filthy, blackened, low-fidelity underbelly that hints at the mutated black metal of bands like Abruptum, Necrofrost, and Vondur. From the beginning, Korperschwache has consisted of mastermind RKF on guitar, noise and vocals, assisted by the loyal mechanical timekeeping of Doktor Omega and occasionally joined by outside contributors. Korperschwache first took form as a side project of RKF's droning industrial rock band Autodidact, but became a primary concern soon thereafter, releasing a steady stream of releases over the years on cassette, Cd-r and digital download on labels like Peasant Magik, Inam Records, Colony, Dark Winter Moon, Public Guilt, Cut Hands and our own sub-label Crucial Bliss, to name a few, usually in extremely limited editions made available to the band's small but loyal cult of followers. The majorioty of these older releases have long been out of print, especially the extremely limited cassette releases from the early days of the band; a longtime Korperschwache fan, I myself never had an opportunity to get my hands on those early tapes, which featured some of Korper's harshest noise-based material.
Now, in conjunction with the brand new Korperschwache album Evil Walks that has just come out on Crucial Blast, we've assembled a series of reissues of early Korperschwache releases, some of which have never been heard by anyone outside of the band's immediate circle. The early cassette releases that have been excavated here are very different from Korperschwache's newer Loop-meets-Abruptum industrial blackpsych sound, many centering around brutal, high-volume noise assaults heavily influenced by both classic UK power electronics (Whitehouse, Ramleh, etc) and Japanese harsh noise (Merzbow, Masonna, Incapacitants, Contagious Orgasm). The later releases from this period began to creep into more guitar-focused dronepower and hypnotic amplifier bludgeon, with material like that of Night Country Fog (Korperschwache's previously unreleased collaboration with Smolken of Polish avant black metal/doom folk band Dead Raven Choir) beginning to direct the sound into the often melodic, always twisted psychedelic heaviness of it's current incarnation.

Evil Walks is the first widely available cd release for Crucial Blast from Korperschwache after almost a decade of smaller, limited-run discs released through the label's Crucial Bliss sub-imprint. It's also the most focused work yet from this utterly demented Texas outfit that started out in the mid 90s as a pure noise project but gradually evolved into this weird, lumbering black-dirge that we hear now.
The eight songs that make up Evil Walks feature the signature Korperschwache moves: thumping minimal drum-machine pound courtesy of the relentlessly decisive Doktor Omega, droning dissonant riffs that veer from hypnotic noise to dismal quasi-black metal buzz, RKF's narcoleptic croaking and malevolent sneer bathed in reverb and amp skuzz, guitars humming and droning against cranked-up amps while creepy news sound bites, the distant sad howling of wolves and ear-piercing screams drift across the background, songs like the sprawling eleven minute "The City Of Lost Girls" and "Me And You And A Can Of Gasoline" crawling all soft and solemn through clouds of deep bass buzz and those weird sing-song ghoul-snarls and trance-states of repetitive slow-motion industrial beats, while "Heaven's Gate" hurtles through a primitive scum-thrash assault of clanking drums, noise, simple punky riffing and distant howls that explodes into a washed out smear of overdriven blast beats and dreamy major key guitar. Strange post-punk reverberations rumble all throughout this disc, nothing new to those who are familiar with the myriad other Korperschwache discs that have come out since 2001 when RKF first began flirting with his odd mix of simple, mesmeric gloom-guitar and black mechanical slime, but it's never sounded better to my ears than it does here, when the music forms into this stoned blackened hypno-rock thing, the buzzing guitars and acid-scorched melodies looping over the skittery industrial beats and weird dubbed-out snares and concussive Godflesh-esque rhythms, turning into something that sounds remarkably like a mutant cross between late-80s British psych/drone rockers Loop and those notorious improv-black metal freakazoids Abruptum. A comparison that I've used before when trying to describe the thumping psychedelic graveyard din of Korperschwache, certainly, but it's never been more relevant than it is here. A warped, blasted beauty shining through rotting shadows and rapidly declining emotional states. A series of ecstatic demon zone-outs. A hallucinatory strain of necro drone-rock. It's not black metal, but Korperschwache's Evil Walks is definitely recommended to fans of the demented fringes of underground blackness inhabited by like-minded bands like Utarm, Wrnlrd, Charnel House, Diapsiquir, Brobdingnagian, Mamaleek, Wormsblood and Lonesummer.

RKF - guitars, vox, ambivalence
Doctor Omega - beats, time, decisiveness
special guests:
Brian Farmer, Sarada Holt, Noel Lairson - additional vocals
Maddy Ferguson - keyboard on "Lost Girls" and "Evil Walks"