FEARSORE

FEARSORE “Bloedwyrx”

By Dr. Abner Mality

“Eerie” and “haunting” are a couple of the adjectives that can be directed towards this mini-album by Chicago-based FEARSORE. It’s a mixture of industrial and electro sounds with a kind of spooky cinematic feel. At some points, it’s fairly conventional electro-beat music in SKINNY PUPPY and NINE INCH NAILS territory, but I think it’s better when the lens angle is wider, capturing the atmosphere of a night-drenched digital world in decay.

Just 5 songs here but each has its own identity while seeming to be part of a bigger picture. “Imminent Failure” immediately captures that eerie “Blade Runner” feel with distorted, murky guitar tones that sound “washed out”. That’s combined with crumbling, crackling samples and downtuned beats. “Waking To Something Dark” starts all Gothic and Bauhaus-y but the intensity picks up later with heavy beats and guitar. The opening to “Sky Devourer Forest Fire Urge” is really spacy and sci-fi, with muffled beats and effects. It becomes more typical “dance industrial” with gremlin-like vocals, but more langourous heavy guitar joins in. “Cloudfall” is the most expansive song, wide open and soaring.

The set ends with the heavy synth drone of “Drone of the Nucleated”, the kind of sound where you just lay back and throb along to it. FEARSORE have constructed something here almost like the soundtrack to a dystopian nightmare...not all that unknown amongst industrial bands, but a little more thought has gone into it this time.

DEAD SAGE RECORDS

FEARSORE