Kadaver – Mouthful of Agony

11.5.21 by Jacob DeRaadt

While I was listening to this tape, released on Syracuse’s Cruel Symphonies back in the summer, the fan unit on our air conditioning unit began to draw in air that reeked of burnt rubber. Perhaps it was a nasal analog to the thick auditory assault crumbling about in my headphones. 

After hearing a Kadaver / Astro split and watching some YouTube videos, it seems the project employs two different tactics on releases:

-Thick, slowly deteriorating bass-heavy slabs of crackling static that avoid the “wall” tag

or

-Pounding decayed industrial / post-mortem electronics

The first approach is on display here. It helps that the duplication and mastering on this is decent, allowing a clear perusal of a very muddy painting. Two-thirds of the way through the first side the muck starts to break up, and bits of incinerated flesh, torn by mechanical threshers, start falling to the ground. A mangled sample of female vocals cuts all of this short. Dead Body Love and OVMN come to mind after giving these textures a few listens. I’m most engaged with the material when it feels like it’s coming apart at the seams rather than dredging up miles of bass muck.

Some parts of side B hang out for a while and don’t do very much for me, although the sputtering ending that ends with disembodied vocals immersed in a soup of high-end static is right up my alley.