Skullflower
IIIrd Gatekeeper

The dissolution, the destruction of the self is the first principle of our music...

Brutal psychedelia: this is "IIIrd Gatekeeper".

But who are the Skullflower? A terrifying creature of the relentless master Matthew Bower, a guitar veteran involved in a myriad of other projects in the filthy, damnable English noise/drone jungle, and a significant influence on the owner of the hEADdIRT label. For their third album, published by this label, the illustrious dreamforger is suitably accompanied by two future members of Ramleh: Anthony di Franco, a newcomer, on bass; Stuart Dennison on drums and "vocals," which are the desperate cries of someone about to drown: let the dance begin.

Nine songs, nine esoteric rituals. Bower decides to set aside all the frills and adornments of the previous "Xaman," presenting this time an astounding series of frank blows to the gums. Constantly ravaged guitar; gargantuan bass; tribal drums; almost non-existent vocal line. All the tracks are a kind of framework that unfolds around a chord, an idea, a single theme; you have the distinct feeling that the band is doing nothing but improvising. A dizzying, unstoppable, vampiric repetition.

Musical impressions? The most disparate. A cross between the Electric Wizard on LSD, the sound walls of the early Jesus And The Mary Chain, and the textures of the early Swans. "Larks Tongues" is a horrid allusion to King Crimson and, as in the first part of that track, it stops and then starts again, stops and then starts again, but here it triggers cold chills down the spine; and in the conclusive "Spoiler," I hear loud and clear the Brian Jonestown Massacre too.

Turn the volume all the way up, press play, close your eyes and start to disappear...

There is no intrinsic meaning to noise per se. For us, it is a frequency that carries. We improvise in music just like in automatic drawing with closed eyes. We give voice to the elements, the spirits, the chaotic behavior, the mirages on the never empty canvases of noise walls. (M.B.)

Ah, do you remember hEADdIRT? The owner is named Justin Broadrick.