Terror Cell Unit is the duo of Mackenzie Chami (God Is War, Koufar, Bachir Gemayel, and many others) and Samuel Montero-Torres (Crawl Of Time), the project standing at the intersection of religious dogma and social breakdown to count the car crashes, releases exploring fanaticism and its impact on American modernism through strong visuals and even stronger power electronics constructs. The duo has typically worked a powerful austerity to drive its message home, but that hasn’t felt quite so direct as on ‘Fear God/Hate Man’ – the duo’s first release from 2014, now reissued on 3”CDR by Nefarious Activities after first emerging as a cassette from Crown Tapes.
The short disc’s cyclic simplicity is proximate and its caked-on dirt practically visible, both tracks driving a simple but powerful synth/distorted drum machine pulse, rumbling low-end making for a suffocating listen notwithstanding the bare bones inputs. “Matthew 27:24” drives a line which varies from heavy rhythmic march to vibrating murmur, with only the middle section showing any signs of further life as a few stray tones reach boiling point on top. After its lengthy sample prophesising the succumbing of America to the perils of anti-Christian modernisms, “I Point The Finger At You” consists of a simple melodic refrain, crisped with distortion and with a lower octave initially doubling the refrain – until assuming its own route for a sort of fucked up counterpoint which splinters the track to then truncate it.
Over both, burly vocals with a pleasing reminiscence of John Balistreri’s prime Slogun moments let loose, heaving in outrage and brutishly berating the track with syllables as blunt as knuckledusters. Mack Chami seems responsible for the outbursts, the harrowing effort familiar to those who have laid on the floor whimpering after playing a Koufar CD too loud: it’s an affronting capability which is up there with the best American power electronics bellowers, and a large part of what has made Koufar and Terror Cell Unit so prominent among the current crop of projects. While later releases have used the same elements with greater sophistry and detail, ‘Fear God/Hate Men’ doesn’t suffer for its brevity or simplicity; the disc says what it needs and moves on, leaving broader statements for later development.
The Cherry Point skipped the entire ‘10s, an amazing proclivity in the previous decade snuffed out with only a couple of delayed projects emerging through the intervening period. ‘Buried Alive’ has appeared at the tombyard gate unexpectedly, two fresh recordings realised in June 2020 and rushed to 3”CDR by Chondritic Sound.
The blood is still circulating because it’s as if nothing had happened at all, “Buried Alive I” opening in flashes of steel and geysers of the red stuff, a constant flow of circling mid-range distortion unable to drown out the cries of strangled feedback sobs and an unsettled, choppy texture which axes away just out of immediate focus. It’s a savage return to form, firmly evoking the overtly violent end of the project’s filmic inspirations and leaving little of its savagery off-screen.
“Buried Alive II” is immediately different, the layers more defined and the overall impact hollower and more unstable. Again that pent-up enthusiasm sounds in scenes of exuberant slashing, but with the responsible texture this time more isolated in its portrayal. Variances in energy leave gashes of textural space from which a crunchy lower register, glimmers of initially turmoiled high-end and plenty of overt gore spill, the piece eventually lulling into an exsanguinated stillness as the final few signs of life slowly slop from the piece’s now empty chest.
If “Buried Alive I” is the scene from the protagonist’s ears then “Buried Alive II” is from the victim’s, the initial fury tempered with an adrenalised numbness, reducing to fragments of sensation and ultimately to a vacating recognition which reduces as death closes in. Phil has found immediate traction for The Cherry Point’s long overdue return, the perfect representation of the project’s reawakening as soaked in horror movie mythos.
https://chondriticsound.bandcamp.com/album/buried-alive
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