Ash Pool has been making noise in the black metal underground for about 7 years now. The main mind behind the project has played with several other bands and also runs the Hospital Productions black metal label and distro. I was pretty fond of last years “Together They Serve To Define The Process” demo tape release and this 2 track effort from this year is more of the same.
Ash Pool create the kind of black metal that a lot of people who aren’t into or have never heard black metal think the genre would sound like. It’s incredibly lo-fi, it’s produced terribly loud, and it’s about as ruthless and evil as the bare minimum of equipment and know-how will allow – which is a whole damn lot. All of the vocals and instruments are recorded with the levels well past redlining and there’s no marvelous production prowess here, but what you get far exceeds those apparent shortcomings and equates to some of the most relentless and blistering belches from the bowels of hell. This is what murky midnight ritual cave dwelling pure unadulterated evil sounds like. And it’s glorious.
Limited to the odd number of 173 on cassette and sold out, for good reason, there’s talk of it materializing on vinyl at some point in the future. No label names or dates have been revealed or even discussed for that endeavour, which usually means it never happens; if it does, though, I’m going to be all over it. In the meantime, cop this rip of the sold out tape and brace yourself for nightmares.
