Being around with Calahan, one of the bands of our lovely noise terrorist Brt, I got to know about BLACKWAVES, since its guitar player Steve plays in both bands. BLACKWAVES got set off at the end of 2004 by Steve, synth and sound wiz Frank, skinman Tommec and is a pure instrumental project. This demo contains 4 songs, whereas the latter one runs over 13 minutes (on the cover are 5 ones named, the last one got scrapped after the mix) with an entire playing time of more than 32 minutes and a high quality production.
Musically references to the Neurosis/Neurot Recordings camp (Isis, Red Sparrows etc.) are abundantly clear. Leanings towards to the repertoire of a Justin Broadrick and a psychedelic touch add depth and get mixed to a soundtrack for the apocalypse that is heavy, brutal, destroying, mesmerizing and abysmal. This record most of all lives on its deep low-tuned guitar sound with a classic but excellent Neurosis-styled riffing, accompanied by the drum work. Synthetically produced sounds hardly ever break through. You have quite to concentrate to hear them out. But as for me it’s ok this way, since they leave an ambivalent impression as they don’t seem to suit the musical pictures, especially in the last song 0113 FA, where they are a bit clearer. But for the noisy sound walls they work fine.
While opening composition 0110 01 perfectly matches the classic Neurosis structures, 0111 1B and 0112 72 kick off with a more rocking attitude and this special psychedelic touch, just to fall back a little later into a deeply depressive ponderosity, dragging all emotions along. 0113 FA begins with beautifully clear guitar tunes but ends the same way.
The BLACKWAVES sound is varied enough to excellently work live on stage (in this case with a self-cut insect movie by Tommec on a screen behind his kit), without missing the singing or feeling bored but is also heavy enough to wallow in your own depressions inside your four walls.
Altogether a wonderful piece of music every Neurosis-styled fan should check out. BLACKWAVES itself are invited to experiment much more (especially with the keys), to disengage from their idols building up an own identity.