EMPTY:

Finkelstein/Vultures split-Fact-3"CDR-color artwork

/I can’t imagine how/why people who aren’t Justin Broadrick or Christian Greene
think they can be any good at what’s now called industrial metal (inventing a genre for
one band is really too much of a compliment but doesn’t Godflesh deserve it?). I can
even less imagine what connection there is between industrial and metal, not only
because of the music itself being so different but because the technical perfection
seeked by most metal addicts -you know, ‘controlled feedbacking’, ‘perfect distortion’
and so forth - doesn’t look compatible with the raw improvisation, random white
noises, metal percussion, prepared instruments, hisses and buzzes of the now
long-dead-but-still-alive-somehow industrial scene. And there’s another problem
as well: TG played hidden most of the time while most metal bands just show off
most of the time. So where’s the point? No point as far as I’m concerned, the whole
Godflesh discography lies on the shelf and still gets listened to a few times a year
and this is about all I want to know about industrial metal. Why am I listening to
Vultures, then, its Israel’s most famous indmet act? I usually am not, but their tracks
on this split simply forget the second word in industrial metal to concentrate on the
first and that’s good news. Opens up with almost 4 minutes of good old simple but
efficient rhythmic aggression then it’s noise ambient with excellent and not too overwhelming
vocals with the usual distortion and a not so usual ring modulator, some rhythm
and a little welcome guitar. Then comes Finkelstein and well, fast forward. Second
release on the label and it gets a 50%-not-that-bad score, so keep up the good work.