Album Details

• Artist: Vril
• Album: The Observer
• Label: Skull House
• Year of Release: 2008
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2008-02-26

Spanish artist Pace Rodriguez, simply, makes noise with added depth.  But there is more going on  with this record than a mere category might suggest. His harsh piercing industrial screech is infused with, and wraps itself around, more structured environments, particularly industrial. The effect makes the noise more harrowing, since it is a part of a place of rhythmic pulse and stability. There is a voice behind the skronk, and it is not happy.

"Noiseaids" howls and pulses with a thudding dread; instrumentation (bass?) does not get lost in the sheets of sound; it struggles to get ahead of it. Likewise, "Cross Skulls" and "Hermetic Philosophy" are humanized noise, in distressing but oddly familiar ways. Noise that effects one emotionally, not just viscerally can be moving; it reminds you that catharsis is on everyone's to-do list at some point. Vril provide a sort of soundtrack to that moment.

Visually, both on the disc and at the website, are muted but passionate, geometric but spontaneous. Watch close; the music might just be part of a bigger plan.

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