Knut
Terraformer

Knut, also an old-fashioned instrument of torture, a sort of whip made of braided leather with sharp and piercing metal hooks at its ends: an effectively gruesome yet fitting image to represent the rending effect produced by the sonic blend promoted by the umpteenth bet (won) by Hydrahead: a rattling ensemble/quartet active for well over a decade and based in that of Geneva, Switzerland. Less varied and more stern than their (impressive) label mates Keelhaul, they become effective bearers of a sound/magma often overflowing as well as caustic and intriguing, concentrated/summa and an immense expansion of the sonic scansions contained in their early ruinous works.

The current corrosive expressive module of inspiration seems to materialize on the fierce Breach/Jesu/Neurosis axis, tending more towards a monolithic-impacting and engulfing nature with balanced doses of (not only) post-hardcore, noise, and crunching metal. What is fully evident during the cheerful listening of the not even 45 "Terraforming" first ones is an infernal acoustic hybrid teetering between very dense instrumental abysses interspersed only sporadically by the chilling guttural/howling screams of the raw vocalist.

Often, if not willingly, the basalt layer mentioned above assumes dangerously apocalyptic shades: the authentic barrages that compose "Wyriwys," the tearing sound-lashes promoted on "Fallujah," or the clangorous "Kyoto" are nothing but saturated, heavy guitar-clanging agglomerates, crashed versus a rhythm section tentacle-like powerful yet astonishingly heavy and agile; unsatisfied with the prominent sonic delirium widely promoted, in certain episodes, like the concluding and nebulous "Fibonacci Unfolds" or the tortuous "Solar Flare," Knut dare the spiky path of numbing ambient/isolationist pseudo-drone, with effective solutions but not always with particularly - according to the reviewer’s humble view, naturellement - original and/or winning results.

Now, one can only hope not to have to wait another four (long) years to learn how to appreciate the natural and lashing evolutions of one of the less prolific (not exactly music-Stakhanovists: three full works promoted in the last three quadrennia) yet counter-trend interesting and effective realities of the contemporary European rock/romantic music scene.