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Heat Signature – Dehumanization In Progress
Heat Signature - Disguised Human Presence (reissue)
Heat Signature. Good title for the explosive pressures ripping through the 'holes. That's pressures plural, 'holes duly subjected to a wide and abundant range of blown-out, whole 'hole, Hole Blow (™) - you've heard the sounds, now try the breakfast cereal! Hole Blow: rich in fiber, ripped and ragged fiber, fibers, textures, strands, blown out textured strands, ripping apart, by degrees, alternately methodical and maniacal, swollen crunch-heads exploding in red ragged rains of raw, searing, heat. Cap'n Crunch has nothing on the shit.
I see the 'holes, or their corporeal hosts, frozen to the ground, shaking in the immediate aftermath of hypersonic ordnance scorching overhead, the sound barrier literally blown apart. Pressures plenty, but packed tight with propulsion, drive. These boys don't futz around, don't dilly dally, they go places, are going places, at speed, savagely cramming all entrances and one exit with unsightly crunchloads of fat, meaty bludgeon-gristle...or so the sounds will have you believe.
Fuck it, I'm a convert. Where do I sign for my free box of Hole Blow?
Conceptually, the two discs seem to link together neatly. Where the earlier DHP reads more as documentary-style reportage on human-killing-machine-in-action, the freshly minted DIP goes deep into the complex psychology that may create such a machine, the necessary process of dehumanization, of the self and/or of the targeted other, climaxing in the aptly titled American Bogeyman. It's all a bit vague, which is fine by me. The sounds are where the real action is. Emphasis on action.
I think, before I accompany Heat Signature on their human-killing spree, I'd like to (attempt to) penetrate the psyche. The Dehumanization commences with an unceremonious hefting of hefty metal scrap into pitch-black junk chamber, clearly establishing the depth of sources at root, circular scrape-metals growing more enamored in the stale gloom. Then at twenty-three seconds the Torture Of Feeling proper, full-bodied multi-textural crunch-plosives utterly shredding the sound barrier. Nothing settles in the afterburn, not for a moment. Constant shift, change, movement- told you these boys were going places. Analog squeal-bleat, raging bludgeon-blurt, flatulent rumble-sludge, percussive lung-drop, waterfall burble-wash, grit-textured gravel-grind. Constant shift and change but I wouldn't say spastic; the sound field is way too full-up, redzoned capacities almost continuously maxed out, exceeded. Result: clearly within the harshnoise category if not overtly harsh- at least, not at any perceptible surface. All the points and edges are blown up reeeal good, diffused over a broad and mangled spectrum, harsh gradations masked in the infra-redzone. So perhaps not perceptibly harsh in an immediate call-your-audiologist sorta pose. Your severely overtaxed speakers may feel otherwise. DENSE. There's your word. There's your fucking word.
Over the six remaining steps of total dehumanization, there's little deviation from the essential overloaded densities first postulated. But that's not to say the boys are repeating themselves. There is just so much...goddamn...shit in play. Shedding The Human Psyche is perhaps the most purely driven into extremes of analog excess, feedback bleat occasionally puncturing the claustrophobic pressures, eruptions of boisterous volcanic spray providing short-lived moments of relief from tightly choking rumble-grip. Frontline Embodied Machine offers a few sneak peaks at the underlying scrap-clank before massed psych-laced feedback squalls drive the heaving mass into completely unforgiving confines of bass-squooshed blubber-sludge.
Dawning A Hollowed Gaze cycles through sickened twitches of looped choke 'n bleed, and then the fiery maelstrom: Crunch Almighty, reigning down from on high, brutally leveling everything in its path. In the closing minute the brutal dis-mercies are voiced through a properly HARSH blistering rage of vocal-tinged scorch. Then the deranged fever-peak of Target The Other, squeal-leavened freak-frenzy nose-diving through densely cloistered meat-grinder spinct-channels, escape hatches plugged in filth-pits of rumble-burnt tension. Toward the fifth minute, the Other is spotted and the inevitable storms of ferocious shrieking scorchout light up the field, momentary flits of vocal-spastic cutting into the discombobulated crumble-scrunch. So to the brief and entirely gratuitous Impassive Carnage, a cycling wild-eyed schizo-discursive, hunkered down turd-clusters drilling into the central passage, broken repeatedly by wide-bodied foaming-at-the-mouth-grade blasts of shriek-laced blister-spray.
At last the American Bogeyman in all gory glory. Now, you wanna know what's wrong with this world? I mean, you really want to know? Beats me man, but here listen to this. Going out. Not with a whimper, but a bang. Several bangs. Bangbangbangbangbang. Gotcha. Filthed crunchturds roll around in the sphinct-ditch, wretching, surging, flatulating. Sudden screech-blast and all fricken hell pours in. From the periphery, the acoustic edges strain into a suddenly complex frame, shrieking, stabbing, needling bleed-textures, flits of vocal-belch, occasional rat-a-tat ruptures of the textured fabric. Then the whole fucking thing blows the fuck apart, and fucked if I know what in fuck's going on. At one point the field is blown open to full-bodied screechy-scorch, the next collapsed into tightly constricted oscillations of heavily distorted thunder-bilge, shovel-fulls of sludge dumped into one ear, another ear pulled down into the buckling undertow. A final ascension to blaze of severely-pitched shrieking glory, ground down, snuffed cold, in knob-twizzled shizzle-dirt.
Disguised Human Presence is, perhaps, every bit as DENSE, active and textured as the Dehumanization, but is for the most part significantly less suffused with explosive, military grade, crunch-ordnance. This provides for smoother, more transparent tour of heavy duty lurch and bludgeon. The human presence is rather less disguised, you might say, particularly on fifteen-minute opener Learning To See In Infrared. An initial jittery hammered retort merges quickly with straight-ahead grey-washed sheer before weightier heaving dimensions underscore a series of often convulsive interactions with low, belching, underbellows. At intervals we could be in the open air, albeit open air belching black choking fumes through scrambled layers of flatulent turbulence, mindsear charging headlong down the barely visible underbrush, chunks of dirt, branches, shrapnel slapping at the face. At other moments voices seem to shout in alarm, just as immediately drowned out in the ensuing barrage of thunderous crushing distortion walls. No let up in tension, no pause for reflection. Toward the end the human death-machines work themselves up into such an overbludgeoned lather that the threat to blow the frequency spectrum to kingdom crunch is palpable. Fuck it man, If It's Warm, Shoot!
Track the second would originally have occupied the flip side of the original tape from which this disc is reissued. No question, a palpable upping of tensions. Or at very least, of distortions. Here we're starting to approach that blown out texture espoused in the Dehumanization. The general feel and pace is more hectic, almost frantic at times, scrambling haphazard across a dense range of lower-mid-uppers, caught up in the moment, shredding 'hole for all it's worth, flits of clipped voice cutting into the scene. As the more scorching developments spike into play, as aggression boils over to purple-faced rage, overtly HARSH ripping assaults start to blast through the 'holes.
By the time the full and blasting assault has run the course, it's Just Meat Now. Here, at last, the overbilged military ordnance starts to blow holes in the proverbial swollen crunch-heads. DENSE, punishing, brutal. Thick, rich, chocolaty. Chock-a-block full-in-body multi-textural crunch-plosives ripping the 'holes a new pair. In fact, with a bit of tweaking on ye olde master tape, this could probably sneak into the Dehumanization and few would be the wiser. Like, some heavy shit mon. Almost the whole of this whole 'hole Hole Blow is given to crushing bludger-scrunch shit-valanche. Of breathing room, then, not much. And talking dead meat, I suppose breathing is not really of essence. At least at the surface. But hold on. Ain't that just what they want you to think? The living breathing human presence, disguised? Ohhh shit. In fact, just below the crushing over-arch, massed shifting rumble-clusters are surging all the hell over the place. Here, there, every-goddamn-where. Well my dude, I did tell you them boys was going places. Uh, dude? DUDE? Ohhh shit. A wee span of high-end squealy dealies bleed into the closing minutes, but almost as an afterthought. There is. Afterall. So. Much. More. Stop paying attention for an instant and you done screwed the pooch m'boyo, and this puppy is done.
Digest spew:
Dense, multi-textural blast pressures literally blowing apart the sound barrier. In the immediate aftermath of hypersonic ordnance ripping overhead, you may be forgiven for crapping your fatigues, quivering in red ragged rains of searing, crunch-splosive, heat. DENSE. Active. Driving. Propulsive. I tell you, these boys are going places. Here, there, every-goddamn-where. At speed. Pay attention cause you sleep for a moment and you are blown to kingdom crunch. Truth be told, you are blown to kingdom crunch, regardless.
