LOCRIAN Drenched Lands CD (AT WAR WITH FALSE NOISE / SMALL DOSES) For Locrian's "first full-length studio recording of all new material," the ingredients may remain the same (metal, noise, drone, power electronics), but they are presented in their most confident and seamless blend yet. This duo can actually play music on their instruments, and use this ability to create extended compositions. Therefore, there's no need to hide behind drone and distortion, allowing these tactics to be used as weapons, and only when necessary. The result is a mostly quiet album that is still more brutal than a lot of today's amps-on-11 extreme music yawnfests.
LOCRIAN Territories (AT WAR WITH FALSE NOISE / BASSES FREQUENCIES / BLOODLUST! / SMALL DOSES) Showing a continued intent to develop and reinvent themselves, Locrian augment their duo lineup with various key guests from Chicago's metal, experimental, and experimental/metal scenes. The result is as solid and satisfying as all of Locrian's releases have been, but given several fresh twists, which we hear right off the bat on "Inverted Ruins," featuring Mark Solotroff of Bloodyminded doing a killer job singing bleak lyrics and Andrew Scherer of Velnias playing kit drums, I believe a first for Locrian. Other temporary members include Bruce Lamont of Yakuza on vocals and saxophone, and perhaps most notably Blake Judd of Nachtmystium on guitars and vocals. All four of these ringers appear throughout the album, in different combinations, but not on every track... though only one track ("Antediluvian Territory") is by the original Locrian duo lineup, there is also only one track ("Procession of Ancestral Brutalism") that features all six musicians. Not surprisingly, it explodes out of the middle of the album as the most raging and traditionally black metal sounding track on here, though I might prefer the nearly 10-minute Solotroff/Locrian trio cut "Ring Road."
