FILTH

The title says all. This album is just extremely disgusting sounding in many ways, ranging from the harsh industrial beats, to the deranged, aggressive screaming of Michael Gira. Each song here is filled with such visceral rage that while being somewhat uncomfortable to listen to, manages to end up sounding pretty great.

The songs are very repetitive, focusing on a couple of rhythmic patterns with constant, pumping, noisy drums, while simple phrases such as "flex your muscles" are repeated ad nauseum. The songs all have a similar, intense, off-putting nature to them, some, such as 'Big Strong Boss' being downright terrifying with high pitched screeches and a feeling that something is hunting you down, feeling as if you're being chased by some unknown force. As a whole, the album is incredibly cohesive and unified in sound and tone all the way through, each track being downright ugly, straightforward, repetitive and downright amazing for how unsettling and violent it gets.

I can't really talk too much about individual tracks here, as they all share extremely similar attributes, and are very similar quality-wise. Tracks that are the exception to this are 'Stay Here' and 'Big Strong Boss', which each are highly memorable. 'Stay Here's' hook is the one that will always get stuck in my head, the yelling of "flex your muscles" as a heavy, industrial groove blares is something that I doubt I'll forget at any point soon. 'Big Strong Boss' follows this by picking up the pace and heavily utilising high pitched noise.

This is unrelentingly heavy all the way through, providing no respite at all throughout its relatively short run-time, making every second of this just further aural bombardment, which while initially quite unlistenable, grows on you and ends up becoming an incredible experience. This is not an easy album to listen to by any means, but it is one that if you can deal with an obscene amount of noise and dissonance, I highly recommend for an extremely visceral experience. While I can't rate this perfectly, due to the fact that it never reaches a high enough point to warrant that, it's a damn great album nonetheless.

Best Songs: Stay Here, Big Strong Boss, Weakling

Weakest Songs: none

Verdict: Extremely difficult listen, but an overall rewarding one. Highly recommended for anyone who can deal with a lot of noise.