Victory  (Flood The Earth Records)

 This band is the side project of Clint Listing of the Symphonic Doom Metal band Long Winters Stare. As All Die started as a solo project in 1997, releasing three works, until 2004, when Aries joined the band, then, as a duo, they release five more works and participated in a couple of underground compilations. Actually “Victory” is their ninth and latest work, as you can see; this band has a wide experience, which is completely reflected in this album. As All Die delivers an interesting audial experiment that could be defined as Harsh Militaristic Industrial, their music is extremely rough, cold and inhumane… The album starts with “Victory” the longest track of this album, with 24 minutes of extremely aggressive soundscapes, this is a very interesting piece; starting with the arsonist speech of the ambassador James W. Gerard, given on 25 November 1917, as a warning to German Americans during the beginnings of the WWI with the famous words “Every citizen must declare himself American… or traitor!”, continuing with all kind of Industrial Noise effects and adorning the whole track with harsh, electronically distorted growls and shrieks. The following track “Rank & Serial Number” flows in a quite similar way, but adding intense keyboard atmospheres that offer a more melodic feeling to the whole highly mechanized, heartless “music”, this song is the most harmonious and ambient-sounding one due the total absence of vocals mixed with the trance-like cyclic keyboard melodies. The third track is my personal favourite, starting by the name “From Rocks to Arrows to Missiles”, it is completely based in hypnotic noisy atmospheres, which repeated along the six minutes this song last, produces an interesting narcotic-like trance. Then, closing this album, “Let Lying Dog Sleep” comes, although this track was live recorded, sounds completely fitting with the rest of the album, continuing the harsh style of the first track “Victory”, but with a severe, fanatic-speech-like vocal work, and some ambient, tenebrous, hypnotic keyboards. This is the fist work of As All Die I have the honour of reviewing, and I must say this two guys leave me petrified with their original “musical” approach and strong based concept. As many of other Flood The Earth Records releases, this is a very intense and intricate work, definitely not for the weak minded… (AP)