Full of Hell and Andrew Nolan – Scraping the Divine
Industrial and noise music are always relevant because the need to purge is evergreen. Anxiety, anger, frustration, fear—they ebb and flow, but they never really disappear, and as such need a periodic release valve. Take, for instance, where we are right now in America, unable to extricate ourselves from the precipice of the abyss and seemingly hell bent on leaping feet first into it. Indeed, times like these call for music that helps to burn a cleansing fire and draw out a primal scream from deep within those darkest places.
Few bands are as prolific and as expert at finding new ways to explore this spectrum of harsh and cathartic sounds as Maryland’s Full of Hell. The group has taken to album-length team-ups in recent years that highlight the inspired forms of antagonism that can be wrought from collaborative metal projects while showcasing their versatility in the process. Among these are full-length deep dives into sludgy violence (with Primitive Man) and dense metalgaze (with Nothing). And after a similarly impressive set of cathartic riffs with this year’s Coagulated Bliss, Full of Hell have paired with industrial producer Andrew Nolan for a more experimental and textured set of nightmares on Scraping the Divine, one that brings with it appearances by members of Endon, Godflesh, and Holy Money while exploring a darkly satisfying palette of abrasion.
Scraping the Divine casts aside Full of Hell’s more immediate and direct grindcore blitz in favor of disorienting and dubby exercises in negative space and slow-motion terror. The effect is often one with a similar sense of ill-ease, like on “Hemlock Gnosis,” wherein Dylan Walker’s guttural screams penetrate waves of menacing ambient drones. But where the pairing of a blistering metal band like Full of Hell with a noisesmith like Nolan could have had the effect of being something like extreme metal remixes, these works are fluid and seamless, the product of two artists with a working relationship that finds deeper connections, whether through the austere drone metal of “Blessed Anathema,” the furious onslaught of noisecore on “Approaching the Monolith,” or the demonic grind-and-groove of “Common Miracles.” Whether drawing out the demons slowly or exorcising them at full blast, the catharsis is potent and real.
Scraping the Divine likewise provides ample canvas for the two artists to explore new and fascinating terrain, as evident through the acid-drenched EBM pulse of opener “Gradual Timeslip.” And “Sphere of Saturn,” featuring metal god Justin Broadrick, even provides the sort of uneasy melodic immersion you might expect to hear on his Jesu project, but with enough lingering menace to remind you that neither muted melancholy nor pure bliss are quite within reach. But it offers a different kind of reassurance, that amid all the rancor and cacophony, you can eventually push through to reach something genuinely beautiful.
Label: Closed Casket Activities
Year: 2024
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