Description

Brutal! The one word out of the entire English dictionary I would use to describe this album. The band shrieked, shred, and howled through 19 minutes of anti-christian black metal. Thermal Pulse sounds a lot like another entry to the neo-industrial black metal style, and one from the same country, in fact: Black Hole Generator. The closest to this band in style is actually another mostly-unknown-but-desperately-attempting-to-be-known band with a single EP under their belt. Black Hole Generator's cold brand of ambient-laced black metal was riffier than Thermal Pulse, and in some ways was a bit more metallic and definite with its style, as though it hoped to grow up and be Anaal Nathrakh some day. Thermal Pulse is a little different: they're even more ambient, and as such are probably more subtle and a tad cleverer than their fellow Norwegians; there are some interesting elements to this album which, while not setting the black metal scene on fire, do make you think this band might go somewhere in the near future. The main body of the music is pure black metal convention: using an attack of blast beats and tremolo riffing to cause an artificial slowdown in your perception of the music, and thus a hypnotic effect. But Thermal Pulse goes the extra mile with a totally droning wall of guitars which change notes achingly slowly over a bed of rigid, mechanical blasting. Vocals don't even attempt at 'singing' most of the time, really: they're just sort of talking in a black metal voice over everything else; giving some speech on what I'd imagine is an appropriately industrial and black metal subject. The blasting drones are actually pretty cool; they form a stark, kind of melodic wall that manages to sound ominous and apocalyptic despite its natural resemblance to post-metal and other gay genres of music. You could almost call this an attempt at backwards Summoning worship if the music wasn't so fast and aggressive. With Cato Jensen on vocals from Sarcoma Inc. and Trail Of Tears Track listing: 1. Trust Fire, Trust Pain 2. Path of Disease 3. By Disgust 4. Cursed