Drogheda

Extreme experimentation in grindcore rhythm and texture.

Pogromist
Wild Rags

1996
Production: Acceptable garage level of sound representation with little external distortion; the mudlike sluggishness amplifies the bass-intense rumble of this style of music.

Review: Punishing grind influenced heavily by gabba technocore, Drogheda rumble through existence as a dominant riff with the double-iteration of techno bounce mirrored by the relentless blasting of a snare drum to the cruising feedback roar of bass, all arbitrated by the nihilistic presence of metronomic high-hat ticking, ticking, the seconds until destruction.

Simple riffs move normally through songs in discontiguous repetitions much like thrash or older grindcore, but infectiously catch to the momentum rhythm of the pounding rebound and match cadence to synchronize timing before becoming disaffected and veering into divergence for restatement of theme as introduction. Bounding, undulating, headaching reverberation of fundamental tones makes the listener a complicit victim in sonic terror.

Tracklist:

1. Carcass Dweller (2:00)
2. Song of Hate & Sorrow (3:10)
3. Consigned to the Tomb (2:30)
4. Demented (2:08)
5. Newborn Corpse (2:48)
6. Sea of Vomit (2:12)
7. Laid to Waste (2:11)
8. Darkening Amoral Morality (2:48)
9. God Infection (1:39)
10. Lesions (3:07)
11. Caries (2:11)
12. Bleed (3:03)
13. Of Pain (2:34)
Extra tracks 10/21/94:
14. Lords of Chaos (Unabomber Dance Remix) (2:48)
15. Kill the Light (1:15)
16. Maggot Spawn (1:13)
Live tracks from Oklahoma Federal Building 4/19/95:
17. Drogheda (1:50)
18. Desperation Madness (2:08)
19. Stygian Nightmare (1:49)
20. Lords of Chaos (3:16)
Length: 46:40

drogheda pogromist 1996
Copyright © 1996 Wild Rags

Songs break into small instrumental notions which expand the basic ideas, usually adding oppositional rhythm and some of the notes of the returning chorus; structures are simple but unconventional and broken by fragments of song designed to move each track back toward itself in nihilistic, fatalistic, provoked thrashing of unbound realization. Often slower parts, reminiscent of Eyehategod, break the virulence of a riff pattern into its fundamental quagmire.

Quite exceptionally Drogheda manage double vocals in Carcass style to the best credit since the band themselves; these vocals rather than leading follow the dominant virus in guitar and mechanical snare/tom, giving room to the urgency while providing sardonic commentary on the grinding industrial mayhem visited on the modern human.


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