Band: Glaukom Synod

Album:  Uczulony

Album Year: 2006

Label: self-released

Genre(s): Noise, Digital Hardcore, Avant-Garde, Post-Industrial

Band Website: http://glaukomsynod.site.voila.fr

Review Date: December 2006

Rating: 7/10

I am not sure where to begin. There is a LOT packed onto this disc. Layout-wise, Glaukom Synod provides 18 tracks traversing the gauntlet from pure noise to industrialized noise, to brief glimpses of digital hardcore to avant-garde sound textures. A few of the tracks on the disc are remixes, or possibly remixes of other bands, I cannot really tell.

Sometimes I love this disc, and sometimes I hate it. While trying to pinpoint when I disliked it, I came up with the idea that maybe I wasn’t angry enough, or I wasn’t driving a cement mixer into a huge building. The album overall is simply too sporadic and noise-y for my tastes on a normal day. There are a lot of good ideas implemented on Uczulony though, and I think that fans of noise music that are looking for more cohesive noise will be amazed with what this disc has to offer. However, those of us who are more into electro-industrial and looking for something with a consistent beat, it is most definitely not here.

Overall Uczulony plays like a blender mixing a power drill with someone using an automated hammering on a nearby workbench, and the speed knobs to all of the above are broken and flip around intermittently at no discernable intervals. Broken fragments of noise fly around everywhere, with little or no melody to keep them together. The result is lots of random pounding and glitchy destruction, although I feel that often it is too random and sporadic and was more thrown together than planned out to provide a specific impact on the listener. While on the one hand there are many different elements and sound textures used throughout this record, on the other hand weighs the fact that they don’t really blend or mesh that well and it repeatedly sounds like jumbled destructive noise more than music. I found it very easy for myself to zone out to some of the tracks due to the fact that there was nothing for my mind to grasp onto, no cohesive structure binding the song together and instead random pounding and distortion. The sounds of the drum kicks are great and I wish that Glaukom Synod would throw more beats in and make this more of a rhythmic noise project, personally I think the results of that would be amazing…the sound quality of the distorted noise is great, not feedback-y and it does not clip like crazy. But unfortunately, wherever anything resembling a beat begins, very soon afterwards it dies away.

I would recommend that Glaukom Synod focus more on putting in melodies or noises that remain constant for the mind to latch onto and follow while the rest of the song changes, rather than have every bit of the song change every few seconds. I really enjoyed the song Le Traitement De Grace because it has a nice structure and beat that you can follow and groove to, while continuing to change and not become stagnant. I enjoy the tracks that veer off into Digital Hardcore territory, but I feel that they lack direction, and just seem to be a bunch of parts thrown together. Transluminescence to the Cube is a great piece and almost works wonderfully, but occasionally it just feels like the creator had no purpose for it and just threw together some random shit to give it, well, a “random” feel. I would have liked to hear some vocals (more than single syllables) used in this, or the use of additional instrumentation rather than being restrained to the spectrum of distorted noise. Ultimately, I enjoy the parts of the disc that are more rhythmic, and I both love and hate the mixture of rhythmic noise, digital hardcore and spazzy-grindcore. It’s a weird album.

Overall I am kind of on the fence with this album. I think it would definitely appeal to fans of harsh noise moreso than fans of traditional or electro-industrial. Uczulony has moments where it shines, but too many moments where I want to turn it off.  If you’re a noisehead and/or a big fan of digital hardcore then I urge you to check this out. Also, if you’re planning on driving a cement mixer or other large construction vehicle into a massive structure and anticipating a large explosion, then you should definitely bring this album with you.

-[.d4n b4rr3tt.] December 2006