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Band: Nostalgia Album: Infestation Album Year: 2006 Label: Self Released Genre(s): Dark Ambient / Noise Band Website: http://nostalgia.mercurous.net/infestation.html
Rating: 8/10 tracklist: 1. Prologue: Decomposition
Something creeps up and attacks unrelentlessly with Nostalgia’s “Infestation.” Released as a limited DIY run, the 24 minutes contained therein explore some sickly disturbing audio illustrations. This short foray into sound experimentation shows that M. Hunter (the madman behind the project) has an uncanny ability to blur the lines between multiple genres to produce a coherent, dark vision. The decay begins with synthetic insect-like breathing accompanied by strong waves of distortion. Here we are forced into a spiral of sounds; attacking and releasing. At the right volume level, this material could even be considered blackened power electronics. The intensity hits and just as it almost becomes too introspectively powerful, the listener is given a moment to breath; only of course to have more nightmarish sounds creep up. Masterful discretion is used to keep a perfect balance between flowing waves of ambience and just pure industrial torment. This work has a tendency to ride on the abrasive edge of sound. We aren’t talking about your average “ambient music to read to” here. Thus, I find that I must be in the right kind of mood to put my ears to “Infestation.” I’ve also noticed that some sounds are a bit overcompressed, which in the case of this album, actually work in aid of the misé en scene Nostalgia has created. Infestation plays like the background music to a snuff film where the star of the twisted picture is not a human subject at all; the star is none other than humanity itself. Under the spotlight, we see pulsating decayed matter. It feels so genuinely horrifying, so genuinely real. This is the force-feeding of pain, ladies and gentlemen. Industrial rhythmic factory rot.
-Jason December 2006
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