Full of Hell – Garden of Burning Apparitions

01/10/2021

Elevating an infernal racket of discordant noise to a musical artform. That is what Full of Hell does. Hailing from Maryland Penssylvania they’ve been kicking it up for more than a decade now. In those mere 10 year they’ve racked together a truly impressive back catalogue of splits, collaborations and full-lengths. They started out as essentially a powerviolence band, taking hardcore punk to its extremes only to experiment and seek out other sounds and artists with each of their manifold releases.

For instance, in 2014 they collaborated with legendary Japanese noise monger Merzbow or three years later with the equally abrasive The Body. In recent years they’ve grown closer to being an extreme metal band, especially since 2017’s ‘Trumpeting Ecstacy’. Infusing their sound with a heavy dose of death metal just made their noise assaults all the more punchier. Apart from the emphasized death metal element, one of the most outstanding tracks on that record was the title track where Nicole Dollanganger’s otherworldly singing added a unsettling eye of the storm amidst the sonic maelstrom. They’ve sought out similar curve balls with from Lingua Ignota no less on the follow up ‘Weeping Choir’,which was pretty much as a perfect culmination of their art as you could get.

So where do you go from there?

A Full of Hell album doesn’t give you any respite. It’s short, but anything from sweet. Most songs barely make it to the 2 minute marker, but that is about all that the human psyche can absorb. Such is the impact of their sonic terrorism. ‘Guiding Blight’ comes crashing in at light speed and set the tone: harsh, uncompromising bursts of razor sharp riffing shoot by left and right as Dylan Walker bellows out his lungs with his inhuman screaming. ‘Asphyxiant Blessing’ has a few sludgier moments which bleed into ‘Murmuring Foul Spring’, that starts out almost ambient before it unleashes a barrage of deathly grind in your face.

‘Derelict Satellite’ is a somewhat longer track, spanning no less than a whopping three minutes and in fact sounds like the freight train from hell is passing by. In between bursts of spasmic sonic eruptions, the short lived ‘Burning Apparition’ reveals itself to be one a heavy death metal motherf*cker just like ‘Eroding Shell’ which is graced with some unbelievably deep growls. ‘All Bells Ringing’ is another all out assault that will mainly keep your ears ringing, not in the least though it’s screeching nails on blackboard outro. ‘Urchin Thrones‘ transforms midway into black metal that has gone completely of the rails, while ‘Industrial Messiah Complex’ takes a very critical look at organized religion and pays homage to Morbid Angel at the same time.

Although never quite easy on the ear ‘Reeking Tunnels’ comes closest to something one would dare call catchy, somehow and possibly for no good reason actually reminding me a bit of Iggy Pop’s ‘I Wanna be your Dog’. This is, however, immediately followed up by the full-on aural disintegration that is ‘Non-Atomism’. ‘Celestial Heirarch’, the album’s closer takes a bit more time which is mainly due to the sludgy outro that drags its feet towards the end in a drudge of screeching feedback and hammering riffs.