CoC : Beyond Sensory Perception - Pursuit of Pleasure : Review

Beyond Sensory Perception - _Pursuit of Pleasure_
(Cold Meat Industry, 2005)
by: Quentin Kalis (8.5 out of 10)

Imagine dark ambience, veering between an Akercocke-like sense of imminent menace and something akin to the "Eyes Wide Shut" soundtrack, and you will have a pretty good idea of what this CD sounds like. Drakhon, one half of the partnership behind this project (the other member is K. Meitzer, who is intriguingly and pretentiously listed as "scientist / artist" in the booklet) was a one-time participant of Cold Meat Industry's flagship act MZ.412, renowned for their Satanic industrial noise music. His participation in the aforementioned band (who, like Hagalaz' Runedance and Mortiis, are inexplicably popular with the typical metal crowd) shines through the use of frequent glitch laden effects; however they are largely in the background, subsumed by swathes of nebulous ambience. The underlying theme appears to be one of exploring the depths of human sexual depravity, judging by the blurry collages of sexual imagery in the booklet (presumably provided by "artist" K. Meitzer) and legible snippets of infrequent and distorted spoken word samples.

As implied by the Akercocke comparison, this is music that is designed to make many -- nay, most -- feel uncomfortable, and is one of the more disturbing releases out of the Cold Meat Industry stable. It is also, so far, one of the more noteworthy dark electronica releases this year. Many black metal bands could do well learn from Beyond Sensory Perception on how to create a truly ominous atmosphere.

Contact: http://www.coldmeat.se

(article published 3/6/2005)