ART OF BURNING WATER - The Voyage Of The Pessimistic Philosoph

Art Of Burning Water - The Voyage Of The Pessimistic Philosoph

10 songs
27:00 minutes
***** **
House Of Stairs

Bandpage

The full title of this British three-piece debut album is The Voyage Of The Pessimistic Philosoph: An Ode To Believers Of The Prevailing Law Of Sod, and the song titles are also not the shortest ones I have ever encountered, with Bite Off The Genitals Of The Intellectuals And Piss Down Their Throats being not only their coolest, but also their longest one. Therefore we can already forgive them for writing so short songs. Apart from the two last tracks that run for four respectively eight minutes, the different tracks are rarely longer than two minutes, a time span Art Of Burning Water use to pack as many chords and rhythm changes into their music as is humanly possible. So do expect mathcore of the most relentless kind, with vocals that cut like a chainsaw, guitars that deliver angular spikes and a rhythm section that is terrifyingly fast and precise.

Although the album opens with the violin-only Murder The Skies Of England, the following songs are pure rock without any unusual instruments. Like the more psychotic side of Today Is The Day, Art Of Burning Water create a kind of hatred of the highest technical skill, and even if at times you wonder if a mellower part wouldn't give you time to exhale, you are also constantly astonished by their skill to add so many ideas into their condensed compositions. Only the closing Truthtellers Get Cancers, ironically their shortest title and longest song, is slower, although hardly more melodic.

This is one mean album, and although Art Of Burning Water convinced already with their participation on the three-way split-album The Combined Stupidity Of Spiteful Men three years ago, you need this whole album to show you the entire spectrum of their insanity. Respectable if not always accessible or pretty effort of a band that needs to be followed in the future

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