Oh my dark lord, what just happened? 25 minutes ago the world made sense. Now all I know is pain. I feel everything yet I feel nothing. My body is broken. My body is weak. My mind feels distorted. But something flows within me stimulating every fiber of my being. I feel surrounded by darkness. Something burns with euphoric clarity. Am I even breathing? I can’t move. Am I trapped or am I free? It’s becoming clearer. I’ve been assaulted. Violated. Forgotten. My skin is coarse. And cold. I am alone. I feel…I feel…Dead In The Dirt.
If that’s not the way you feel after hearing The Blind Hole from Atlanta’s Dead in the Dirt you’re doing something wrong. For a breath under 24 minutes DitD drop 22 bombs of sonic belligerence. When compared to the 19 second flash of ‘Skullbinding’, the three minutes of ‘Halo Crown’ feel positively nuclear. Each track hits with some level of explosive force, leaving a smoking hole as evidence.
For the duration we’re subjected to a feedback-drenched manifestation of sonic instability. From the fury of ‘Mask’ to the heaving malevolence of ‘Swelling’ and at every point of full blown chaos in between, DitD deliver hammerblow after haymaker of devastating aggression. Their barely organized madness and segmented rage gets packed into (mostly) minute-or-less blasts of annihilation. ‘Idiot Bliss’, ‘Beggar’, and ‘Vein’ are shorts bursts of aggro-as-fuck grinding that feels like a giant going mental on the speedbag. ‘Cop’ and ‘Pitch Black Tomb’ roll in some groove and at various times massive riffs pull you in to be smashed upon a fist of mayhem.
The boiling rage of the riot-inducing screams and bestial growls comes from socio-political ideologies and a straightedge vegan ethos. One can then assume their venom is fueled by frustration with a society blind to its own demise. Being vocally accosted and mashed to pulp under a tank of grinding hardcore rarely feels this good. After all the whirlwind riffing and seizures of terror personified, DitD finishes the job with some heavy ass doom. The repeated slamming with pulverizing agony, like a Chinese water torture of downstrokes, forms a knot in the pit of the stomach. Each earth-swallowing note feels like a mile long whip. The impact takes forever to get there and the anticipation hurts as much as the sting. When it does strike, a little piece of you dies.
This harried sonic invasion of grind, sludge, hardcore and doom was recorded by Andy Nelson and mastered by Brad Boatright and every ear-raping second gets thrust through the speakers with penetrating force. Prog-nerds and atmos-freaks need not apply. The Blind Hole is pure balls-out hatred for everything clean and pretty. Brace yourselves.
8/10
Matt Hinch