Cadaverous Condition - Destroying The Night Sky

How strange is this? Cadaverous Condition are an Austrian death metal outfit who accompany their tracks of growling death metal riffage with the occasional excusrion into acoustic territory. They've previously had a split releases with the American dark folk outfit Changes and their albums have featured contributions from Patrick Leagas of 6 Comm, Matt Howden of Sieben and Richard Leviathan of Ostara amongst others. Julian Cope compiled their forays into death folk on Songs For A Crooked Path released on his Fuck off and Di label. On Destroying The Night Sky they have ushered in a number of experimental acts to create new and unique pieces using their To The Night Sky album as source material. The results are wonderfully diverse and surprising.

Thighpaulsandra totally obliterates the material into treated electronics and pummeling rhythms with a monstrous riff variation on the Crossroads TV theme tune with a roll call of characters from the defunct British soap opera. Genius. Andrew Liles strips the heavy growl from 'At The Crossroads' and ties it to a simple piano melody before launching into doom metal riffing. His other contribution 'Degraded (Fireship)' focuses on the minimal riffing before adding electronic textures to the soaring distored sounds accelerating the ferocious roar of the vocals considerably.

Colin Potter ups the rhythm and speeds the vocals over the solid metal riffing creating a 'Relentless Repentance' augmented by a huge burst of drones. Even arch experimentalists Nurse With Wound get caught up in the guitar riffing, constantly slipping into desolate textures before reprising the frenetic chords of 'The Loneliest Grave', adding distortion before settling into a cut and splice dissection that's one part Cadaverous Condition and one part Nurse With Wound.

Industrial stalwarts Controlled Bleeding throw in a 'Whole Lotta CC' opening with the acoustic death folk of 'I Woke From A Sleep That Lasted All My Life' before breaking into a torrent of all-out noise through passages of jazzy noodling, piano mishaps, various sonic debris, and sped up mulch returning time and time again to the acoustic folk before bringing it all to an end with some rockin' guitar solo.

Nocturnal Emissions return to noise territory with some of their harshest contributions in some time featuring amongst their three tracks. 'Deconstruction 1' is all funky bass rhythms laced with blasts of noise. 'Deconstruction 6' obliterates the constituents parts of Cadaverous Condition creating a monstrous piece of mangled electronics and treated voices.

On 'Still Dreaming' Product 8 add ambient textures to the acoustic death folk reading of 'I Woke From A Sleep That Lasted All My Life', while as Gjoll they create ominous drones from the guitars from which the voice of 6 Comm's Patrick Leagas soars. Holy McGrail (one half of Slomo) rips apart the death vocals from the jolly death folk acoustics of 'Destroy Your Life' breaking it up, distorting it and aligning it with doom sonics on 'Death Warmed Up'. Asmus Tietchens offer a rhythmic splice and dice comprising segments of treated vocal. The Austrian composer Ali Helnwein, meanwhile, takes the same source vocal and creates a sumptuous orchestral backing to close the album.

It's a risky approach, but Cadaverous Condition aren't your run of the mill death metal band. They are the only band I know that are influenced as much by Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty as they are by the neo-folk scene. With an impressive list of remixers Destroying The Night Sky should be able to summon the interest of the more open-minded death metaller or the more adventurous experimental listener. But be warned the crooked path that Cadverous Condition travel just got more crooked. For more information go to www.klanggalerie.com