The only time I've reviewed an album from experimental drone master Matt Bower 's band Skullflower it was for a reissue of their 1992 effort IIIrd Gatekeeper. While the passage of time (and it hasn't been that long) has led me to question a little bit the reasoning behind my three and half stars grading, and I'm not sure that if I was to review that album again today that I would dish out the same score, I still don't think it would come close to being anywhere near as bad as what Bower and company have put together on their latest offering The Keys To Untune God's Firmament.
I understand that for music to be considered avant-garde or groundbreaking you have to expect that for the most part conventional thinking and commercial ambition is going to get kicked out to the curb along with the trash. However that being said, the sounds that Bower has put together on this excruciatingly long two disc set is just too damn painful to sit through.
For a grand total of one hundred and eight minutes the listener's ears are pushed almost to the point of bleeding through an unyielding assault of what basically amounts to industrial sounding white noise. Matt Bower has been pushing the envelope of brutal, drone music since the 80's but after listening to most of this album all the way through I seem to have lost the plot where drone crossed over into this mess. Maybe I've missed the point from day one, but to me the industrial sounds that make up this album should be left to the factories of the world and not be labeled as music.
Track Listing
Disc One
1) Shivering Aurora
2) Starlit Mire
3) Enochian Tapestries
4) City of Dis
5) Gateway to Blasphemous Light
6) Basement of an Impure Universe
Disc Two
1) Nibelungen
2) Blood Mirror Streams
3) Blackened AngelWings Scythe the Billowing Void
4) Chaotic Demons Fly in to my Eyes
5) Skar Konstellation
6) Rheingold
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