Two decades have passed in the land of Gnod, yet the psychic travelogue only becomes more enthralling as it goes on. And whilst this band has flourished via dauntless conviction, hive-mind magic and a fierce and uncompromising spirit, one ingredient has served as a crucial fuel for the fire – the monolithic singularity of the riff.
This second chapter of Gnod’s sort-of-anniversary trilogy also originates in the same six day sessions as the first, at Hellfire studios near Dublin with producer Spud Murphy. Yet the focus this time is on the transcendental heaviness and repetition that the band have often used as a primary fulcrum of their approach. This volume captures the sound of strings flayed, throats shredded, skins punished by the organic chemistry of this…
Tag Archive: Gnod
The volumes of music referenced in the title of Gnod’s latest dispatch are slated to total three, all of them drawn from just shy of a week in the studio. In many ways, this Salford-originated experimental group are different – in personnel, setup, lifestyle – from their beginnings, two decades ago this year, but by no means comprehensively so, and this sort of nose-to-tail approach to serving up their recording sessions is reminiscent of when there’d be a new Gnod release practically every other month.
Moreover, on the evidence of Chronicles of Gnowt Vol.1 there’s no reason to think they’re offering us offcuts. With vocals featuring only sporadically, it lacks the polemical feel of some of their releases, but insularity can be very fruitful…