Mutation – Mutation III: Dark Black


If there was any justice in the world, Ginger Wildheart, quite possibly the best living rock songwriter in Britain, would be a Grammy-laden peer of the realm; lauded, rewarded and extolled for his services to rock music. Yet, to coin that most passé of phrases, “everything happens for a reason”, because if that justice had been served, the obtuse fire that feeds the abrasive pummeling of Mutation III: Dark Black (Undergroove) would have been robbed of the oxygen of anger and normality of every day human existence that permeates each second of the excellence of extremity that Ginger and co-collaborator Scott Lee Andrews have forged.

A cacophony of grindcore, noise, industrial and somewhere, buried, squirming, flailing against the panel-beating, hints of melody and earwormery, this “pervese experiment in aural self-destruction” is horribly brilliant. Launching two-footed with the skin-flaying pounding of ‘Authenticity’, the very sound of the root cause of a bewildered and anguished scream, the tone is well and truly set as Dark Black is ferocious and relentless from the off.

‘Toxins’ follows, taking the more acute elements of Devin Townsend’s Deconstruction (HevyDevy/InsideOut) and pushing into an even more anti-social space. And speaking of Devin, he makes a welcome appearance on the appropriately titled ‘Devolution’, another sub-three minute migraine of a drubbing. There is no let up until the churning finale of ‘Deterioration’, even if ‘Irritant’ manages to dance a poppy refrain into your charged and bewildered frontal lobe.

But make no mistake, this isn’t a barrage of mindless juddering and lashing out, this is excellently crafted rage, following the golden thread started with abrasive Wildhearts album Endless Nameless (Mushroom) and taken beyond the nth degree into the chaos that lives beyond regularity of Dark Black, that serves as yet another confirmation of the inherent talent of its creators, and their ability to channel and represent an untamed and progressive, stormy and very real mental state. Extreme, unstable, venting, malevolent, grind with a twist. Thank you Ginger; your Mutation is our sonic salvation.

8.5/10

STEVE TOVEY