Splintered - Between Scylla and Charybdis
A great noise-industrial rock band that started in the early 90s by Richard Johnson. The same guy was responsible for the cult magazine Grim Humour and the well-known industrial/noise label called Fourth Dimension. Between Scylla and Charybdis is their sixth album and the first one after their pause in 1998, all the material within has been made and recorded between 2021 and 2024. A 6-track CD digipack-album with over 50 minutes of spacy punishing enjoyment.
One may ask about the actual album title. Scylla is a hydra-looking monster-daughter of Poseidon himself. And her sister happens to be another monster-daughter called Charybdis. Legend has it that Charybdis was once a water nymph who expanded the coastal line of Greece causing floods and destruction, this made Zeus angry and he therefore turned her into a huge water-dwelling Cthulhu´ish monster. Scylla on the other hand was also a water nymph that Poseidon liked too much, causing his wife Amphretrite to be jealous which then turned her into a Scylla monster. These two monster creatures inhabit the narrow sea between Sicily and the Italian Mainland, causing the sinking and destruction of traveling ships. So in other words, the album title has the same meaning as Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, or between a Rock and a Hard Place. The lesser of two evils.
First track Permutation 1: Furta Sacra works as a sort of intro to the album. The sound of crashing waves onto cliffs, and excellent epic psychedelic space-rock guitar work with a raw, scraping, and atmospheric bass line in there as well. Sounds really promising so far! Furta Sacra means the stealing of relics done in the Middle Ages when Christians moved a relic to another shrine/church.
The second track Scylla starts with some gritty static noise, where the slithering sludge-guitar and the bass slowly creep in. Some ritualistic thumbing drums are added, with some mysterious vocal parts hidden in the background. I really get that feeling, that you are on treacherous waters! Something big and scary is hiding in the murky depths, waiting to strike. Really love those ethnic tam-tam drums that come later on, giving the track an adventurous feel. Love how the whole thing bloody works together!
The third track The Horrors of Linden, is another slow and narrowing epic-piece of heavenly psychedelic space-rock. Like being on mescaline in the middle of the burning desert. A thing described as a cross between early Earth and Skullflower. Absolutely masterfully done.
The fourth track Charybdis, offers bubbling underwater drums and vocal parts sounding like far-away radio-static. Beautiful hidden melodies of sound in there, find them like treasures in a maze. Shimmering and pulsating like a soon-to-exploding star, this album keeps on amazing me! The whole track engulfs the listener, just in the same manner Charybdis engulfs the whole sea.
The fifth track Bell Harry´s Lament is the longest track on the album, being over 15 minutes long. Might just be my favorite track on the album. Slowly and surely the track builds up to something grand. Noisy post-rockish textures, scraping and hitting bits of shimmering steel springs, ceremoniously rhythmic parts, chirping birds, and moody church bells... not even halfway through! Some kind of daylight voyage through the ruins of an ancient graveyard, u can almost sense the dead trying to get your attention...for some reason unknown. The track ends with those watery waves, could it be about the protagonist in M.R James's ghost story?
The sixth and last track on the album is called Permutations 2: Pillars of Salt. Ends the album in the same manner as how it began with the first track. An excellent outro, delivering the last bit of the album.
The whole thing is a masterpiece, and the whole thing can be listened to again and again. Plenty of exquisite ritualistic moments, levitating space-rock moods, even jaw-dropping undertones of cosmic horror... the whole thing just makes the time... well stop! And that is all I have to say, one more thing. Do give it a listen, it´s quite the trip!.
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