Locrian "Territories" Review from The Sound Projector

Link here.

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Last year I was very pleased to discover the music of Locrian, a Chicago duo who seemed to be doing something exciting with their excessive amplified guitar and electronic sludge-drone, overlaid with Black Metal elements and wallowing in supernatural paranoiac slime. For Territories (AT WAR WITH FALSE NOISE ATWAR073 / BASSES FREQUENCES BF23/ BLOODLUST! B!147 / SMALL DOSES DOSE85), the duo of Foisy and Hannum have supplemented their power with players recruited from Nachtmystium, Yakuza, Velnias and Bloodyminded – all gloom and hate merchants to a man. The addition of vocals, synth, drums, sax and an extra guitar has certainly made the Locrian overall sound a lot thicker and, in places, more textured and detailed. I feel however that some of the relentless and obsessional qualities that they exhibited so convincingly as a two-man act have been slightly compromised by the need to co-operate with these other bloodthirsty musicians. ‘Procession of Ancestral Brutalism’ is one example of the new band dynamic, but in spite of its killer title it’s not much more than identikit Black Metal. However it would be churlish to deny that overall, this is an album of horrifying power, particularly on the slow and broody cuts like ‘Ring Road’ which over ten agonising minutes of painful squalor and heavy monotony soon convinces you of the presence of imminent disaster. Vinyl copy of this item known to exist, unless sold out by now.