Red Harvest
Sick Transit Gloria Mundi

Red Harvest are one of the most chilling, dark and violent bands to emerge in the last two decades and, at the same time, one of the most underrated.

The group, formed in Oslo in 1989, has been the protagonist of a truly remarkable sonic evolution: starting from the raw and direct thrash of their first album "Nomindsland" (1992), they progressively moved towards industrial, noise, and electronic shores, shaping, with albums like "Cold Dark Matter" (2000) and "New World Rage Music" (2001 - a reissue of a 1998 EP of the same title with additional tracks), a dark, massive, inhuman, and damn effective sound, reminiscent of the lessons from bands like Ministry, Godflesh and Fear Factory.

"Sick Transit Gloria Mundi", released in the spring of 2002, is probably their most complete and mature work. Less brutal and "physical" than their previous efforts, more balanced in the alternation between atmospheric and violent moments, the album boasts a series of tracks that would be perfect for a high-tension or sci-fi film. In these scant 50 minutes, they offer us their own vision of a not-too-distant future: a pitch-black, mechanized world where man, controlled and enslaved by machines, will lose all freedom and possibility of survival. An apocalyptic dimension where nature and the purest feelings no longer exist: only industrial greyness, perpetual darkness, and the obsessive and unpleasant noises of functioning devices remain.

The track that opens the show, ""A.E.P."", immediately makes it clear that there is no semblance of light here: the violent guitar riffing, sharp as an icy blade, alternates with more melodic, almost black, openings; all is seasoned with Ofu Khan's unsettling growl urging us to evacuate planet Earth before it's too late.

In ""Godtech"" we fall into a leaden, dark, and sulfurous atmosphere, dominated by industrial echoes that seem to have come out of an early-era Einsturzende Neubauten record (the more noisy and extreme one, to be clear). The slow, cadenced drumming echoes other industrial heroes, Justin Broadrick's Godflesh. Similarly "Dead" (which would not look out of place on an album like "Streetcleaner", indeed) and the doom-oriented ""Beyond The End"", melancholic and physical, enough to be likened to other masters of the genre: Neurosis.

The feature of ""Sick Transit Gloria Mundi"" is the ability to mix diverse influences and styles, managing, however, to give meaning to everything, so as not to result in too fragmented a sound from track to track. ""Desolation"" could have come from Trent Reznor's mind, with its electronic and distressing beat, while the blast beat that introduces ""Weltschmertz"" takes us back, for a moment, to the atmospheres of the early Emperor. Closing this unsettling futuristic picture is ""[Dead End]"", the worthy funeral march of a record as desolate as it is menacing.

Although not all the tracks flow perfectly, the average quality of the songs is really high: evident sign that when Red Harvest are kissed by inspiration they know how to create music far more personal (and genuinely terrifying!) than many of their fellow blacksters dressed as panda bears trying to scare with their demonic tales that no longer even scare the under 2 audience.

That said, "Sick Transit Gloria Mundi" is certainly not an album for everyone, given the music and atmospheres contained here, but if on the contrary you are fans of the genre and want to immerse yourself in a dark and paranoid dimension for a good hour, then get yourself a copy of this album, a true heavy hitter for every industrial fan and the like.