### 101 South: No U-turn

#### 22/12/09 || Khlysty

From Wikipedia.: “U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101, is a north-south U.S. highway that runs through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, on the West Coast of the United States. It is also known as El Camino Real (The Royal Road), where its route along the southern and central California coast approximates the old trail which linked the Spanish missions, pueblos and presidios. It merges at some points with California Highway 1. […] U.S. Route 101 was once the major north-south link along the Pacific coast. North of San Francisco, it has been replaced in importance by the highways of the Interstate Highway System, specifically Interstate 5, which is more modern in its physical design. Route 101 is still in use as a parallel freeway or highway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and is an alternative to the Interstate for most of its length. In 1964, California truncated its southern terminus in Los Angeles, as Interstate 5 replaced it. The old road is known as county road S-21 or Historic Route 101 in northern San Diego County. The highway’s northern terminus is in Olympia, Washington, though the northernmost point on the highway is in Port Angeles. The southern terminus of U.S. 101 is in Los Angeles, California at the East Los Angeles Interchange, the world’s busiest freeway interchange.”

Aren’t you just HAPPY to have learned in such a little time so many things about 101 South? Don’t you feel, y’know, fulfilled? Oh, how joyful this makes me: to be able to spread wisdom and knowledge to people. Isn’t this, though, why I –and everyone else in this here site- joined GD in first place? To make people happy and more knowledgeable. And, well, with this note, I’m leaving you to pursue my other callings in life… Buh-bye!!!

(Gets grabbed by Lord K and Kampfar, who remind him in VERY clear terms that he has to review 101 South’s new record and not talk about some fucken road, goddamit! Chastised and with some pains here and there, as the Lord and Kampy are MUCH bigger than him and prone to random violence, he returns to the task at hand…)

Look, all I wanted was to protect GD and its readers/followers/believers from something so hideous, that even I have difficulty putting it into words. But, would anyone listen to me? Nah, I’m just a helot here, the last hole of the flute, so my opinion counts for shit… OK, then, you bastards, YOU made me do it, now reap your rewards…

101 South is an AOR band and, when I say AOR, I mean AOR in its most pure and undiluted form; if you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll give you a round-up: what we have here is a kind of black metal that even black metallers are loath to approach, since, even for black metal standards, it’s too raw, unpolished, brootal to the core and totally user-unfriendly. Well, to put it into some perspective, AOR sounds like early Burzum cross-bred with “Transilvanian Hunger”-era Darkthrone with even worse production values (if that’s possible…). Well, these guys take the AOR dictum to the extreme, making a record that sounds like a raw, worm-infested, pus-dripping wound. I mean, just take a look at the members of the band and you might get an idea of what’s comin’ at you.

The guitars are not even the usual lo-fi buzzing white-out that characterizes black metal; nah, these lunatics move waaaaaaaay beyond even that, creating a sonic maelstrom of fragmented spiky riffing, slathered freely with uncontrolled feedback, primeval distortion and amp hiss and crackle. The drums move constantly towards blastbeat-blur territory, without even a hint of interest about rhythm, time-signature or even propulsion; the drummer just bangs away, in inhuman speed, while the production makes everything sound like meat being hit by robotic cleavers. The vocals… oh, dear god, the vocals! The horror! The horror! Can you imagine Diamanda Galas, filled to the gills with acid, speed, peyote, MDMA and aspirin, screaming while being raped by a corroded-metal monster with a dick the size of a contrabass? You can???? Wow!!! Ehm, OK then, multiply this a hundred-fold and you MIGHT get an idea of the vocals in here…

I think there are some keyboards here, but the unholy racket emanating from my speakers won’t let me really hear anything more than a low buzzing/droning underneath the mess. The production obviously took the road of recording everything without any hint of equalization and mixing it as it is. Look, I’ll square with you: this is as unapproachable and ugly as it gets. If you have any experience with older bands of this kind (Förêignêr and RËØ Spêêdväägön are two that readily come to mind…), well, these guys are really leaving their forefathers behind in terms of sheer sonic assault, ugliness, confrontational attitude and, well, when you get down to it, pure lunacy. Even Abruptum, at their most crazy-ass, sound tame when compared with this shit. So, bottom line is, this is as bad as it gets. I’m not really sure that you can even call it “music”; this sounds more like torture distilled into a squall of random noise; terror made sound; lunacy made flesh. I wonder, really, if there’s any human being out there who can stand this and not lose its mind…

P.S.: I cannot, for the life of me, even imagine what did the geniuses at the label think, when they sent this, this… there are really no words to describe it, to GD…

- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: Gypsy Rock Records
- Website: 101 South MySpace
- Band
- Gregory Lynn Hall: vocals
- Roger Scott Craig: keyboards, vocals
- Many World Famous Professional Guest musicians have helped along the way

- Tracklist
- 01. When You’re In Love
- 02. All In The Game
- 03. Lonely Heart
- 04. What Are You Gonna Do Anyway
- 05. End Of The Game
- 06. From What You Know Now
- 07. Yesterday Is Gone
- 08. Take Me Home
- 09. Don’t Tell Me It’s Over
- 10. Blue Skies