Stone Wired - G.R.I.M. [2008-2018]
Released last Christmas 2018, a double compilation (and double-sided) cassette release from Stone Wired limited to 66 copies. 2 beautiful cassettes encased in a lovely outer box. Both cassettes contain 2 albums on each side, first one has the albums Grim and Cold Bodies (recorded 2008-2018) and the second tape has the albums Habitual Discomfort and Dead (recorded 2018-2019).
Stone Wired is one of the numerous industrial projects from the same mind which gave us Human Vault, a project which thoroughly explores moody minimal electronic body music (see the former review of Human Vault´s Primordial). Stone Wired works within the perimeter of sinister death-industrial and flesh-scraping industrial-drone ambient.
The first album called G.R.I.M. moves into death-industrial soundtracks. Really has a lot of "charm" to it, being submerged into every kind of basic human perversions you can think u cannot help but feel that every track has a story to tell. It´s primitive death-industrial with a touch of a high-tech sound, but not high-tech in a glossy and shallow kind of way. A thing between the heavy-ambient horror-soundtrack diversity of Swedish Megaptera to the kind of background stuff one (just might) could notice on albums like The Infidel by Doubting Thomas (Skinny Puppy side-project).
Second album Cold Bodies is something completely else. Murky drone and dark heavy ambiance get mixed up together in a toxic cesspool! Empty (and devoid of life) landscapes stretch on and on without end, almost have a post-nuclear feel to it. Total and pure isolationist ambient music with a focused apocalyptic feel. I would although prefer G.R.I.M. album compared to this one. I am a sucker for sound dynamics and I do think (to a certain degree) that Cold Bodies could use a bit more of that. Could charm the fans of Lustmord or Desiderii Margrnis.
The third album Habitual Discomfort is... a kind of thing in between the G.R.I.M. and Cold Bodies. More in the ritual-industrial kind of way. Delivering industrial sounds while laying it cool with icy-drones. The coldness of the ambient-orientated tracks on this album actually works better for me than on Cold Bodies. The sound dynamics seem more organic and sincere. One of the tracks on here takes me back to the soundtrack to Clive Carpenter´s excellent sci-fi horror flick The Thing, cold and calculated atmosphere with a sense of... a certain kind of doomed dread which suddenly can appear without a single warning! Interesting focus on true-crime themes on this one, notice the samples/recordings being used here.
Fourth and last offering simply called Dead thrives on industrial noise and bass-driven ambiance. Not that far away from some of the classic and minimalistic recordings with early death-industrial pioneer Brighter Death Now. It has that slightly claustrophobic damp cellar kind of feel, pretty much being engulfed or swallowed up by that specific pitch black kind of darkness. Without a doubt the most sinister of these 4 minialbums on these two cassette-tapes.
And there you have it. Pretty much worth it from the start and to the end. It delivers what it should deliver when it comes to this kind of death industrial music. Balanced between the old school and the new school of death industrial. High tech sound, but still with a minimal and primitive aesthetic. Not a waste of time at all, worth your time!
And there you have it. Pretty much worth it from the start and to the end. It delivers what it should deliver when it comes to this kind of death industrial music. Balanced between the old school and the new school of death industrial. High tech sound, but still with a minimal and primitive aesthetic. Not a waste of time at all, worth your time!
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