Global Domination | Reviews | Gore: Hart gore/Mean man's dream

Recent updates

Recent discussions

Reviews

Gore: Hart gore/Mean man's dream

25/02/09 || Khlysty

From the darkest vaults of the ’80s forgotten musical abnormalities, Southern Lord and its knighthood-deserving people unearth one of the most-overlooked bands ever, remastering and presenting to the unsuspecting audience their first two recordings of undiluted brutality and sonic mayhem. For those not in the know, Gore was a Dutch trio from the early ’80s, which (during an era when everyone and their sisters in the metal world was going by the “harder, faster” rule) decided that to be heavy, all you needed was guitar, bass and drums and an impossible mixture of influences: Swans, Rollins Band, “My War”-era Black Flag, and other noisemongers of the time was their fuel, but while they proudly displayed their influences, the boys seemed to have other ideas. So, to make a long story short, they decided to be all-instrumental, to null the vocal part in the song’s equation and let the music speak for itself. And, oh, my! What stories did it have to tell!

In the nifty two-cd package, we have “Hart Gore”, the band’s first record from 1986, and “Mean Man’s Dream” their second installment from 1987. Gore’s basic m.o. is pretty simple: find a mid-tempo, but headbangable rhythm, get the drummer to hit the skins as powerfully as humanly possible, add a riff as nasty as a cut with a rusty knife, repeat with minor variations, record it all in the red and move on. But, as simple as it seems, this formula is actually pretty engaging. The songs never overstay their welcome, the band displays a commendable economy in playing the songs, but, also, a wonderful ear for space, variation, groove and hooks. These songs are not simply riff repetitions, but fully rendered musical pieces, filled with power, anger and brutality and, also, with (hints of) melody, dynamics and space. The drums sound like cleavers falling on pieces of (dead? freshly dead? alive? don’t know, don’t want to…) meat, the bass is a nasty menacing buzz, while the guitar alternates between a scrappy, grungy howl and a fuzzed-out, sludgy roar. The end result is a sound that’s fuckin’ monolithic but, at the same time, oddly fluid.

Production-wise, these records are amazingly recorded, seeing as they must have cost no more than two or three crates of beer. So, kudos to mr. Theo van Eenbergen, who later became Theo van Rock and was Rollins Band’s sound engineer during their most fruitful period. The drums especially have a sound that surely has given lots of ideas for how to record them to a certain Steve Albini (producer of Neurosis, High On Fire, Zeni Geva, et al.). The songs in “Hart Gore” are, generally speaking, shorter than the ones in “Mean Man’s Dream” and more aggressive. For its second album, the band chose to flex its collective instrumental and creative muscle, making the songs longer and more “experimental”, but without giving an inch in the aggression and brutal force department. At the tail end of each record Southern Lord has added a slew of studio outtakes and live tracks, which, while generally lacking in the sound department, display a band fully-formed, even during its earlier stages, full of adrenaline, power and a fuck-you attitude.

So, is this metal? Well, it’s metallic, it’s aggressive, it’s brutal, it’s powerful, it’s engaging. And, in the music you’ll find ideas later copied or developed by many other bands, be it Godflesh (the minimalism), Don Caballero and Dysrhythmia (the instrumental approach towards metal), or any of the post-metal bands cropping up as of lately (the repetition and sound layering). But, I have to warn you: to enjoy the music, you have to pay attention to it, or else all you’ll get out of it will be a headache. See, as aggressive and groovy as it is, the music’s also repetitive and samey-sounding, so you have to listen to it, to fully enjoy it. Gore was a band with an uncompromising vision and sound in an era when things were in flow, for both “mainstream” and “underground” metal. A vision that many have tried to replicate, but no-one has achieved of surpassing. Again, thanks to the guys in Southern Lord for making these ugly, brutal gems easy for anyone to access.

9 gory details out of 10.

Information
Released: 2008
Label: Southern Lord
Website: southernlord.com/band_GOR
Band
Pieter de Sury: guitar
Danny Arnold: drums
Marij Hel: bass

Tracklist
Hart Gore:
01. Extirpation
02. To the Gallows
03. After
04. Axe of Revenge
05. Out For Blood
06. USA is Calling
07. Death is Coming
08. Fear
09. In the Eye of the Sniper
10. He Knows You Are Alone
11. Extirpation (Live)
12. To the Gallows (Live)
13. After (demo)
14. Axe of Revenge (Live)
15. Out For Blood (Live)
16. USA is Calling (Live)
17. Death is Coming (demo)
18. Fear (Live)
19. In the Eye of the Sniper (Live)
20. He Knows You Are Alone (Live)
21. Death Has Come (Live)
22. The Hunt (outtake)
23. Station to Station (Bowie cover, rehearsal)
Mean Man’s Dream:
01. Mean Man’s Dream
02. Search
03. Love
04. Last Steps
05. Chainsaw
06. The Bank
07. Back Home
08. Loaded
09. Meat Machine
10. Out For Sex
11. Mean Man’s Dream (Live)
12. Search (Live)
13. Love (Live)
14. Last Steps (outtake)
15. Chainsaw (Live)
16. The Bank (Live)
17. Back Home (Live)
18. Loaded (Live)
19. Meat Machine (Live)
20. Out For Sex (outtake)

Reviews