The disintegration of a relationship is one of the more unpleasing, frustrating, mentally annihilating experiences a person can endure. Great Fall’s cataclysmic record “Objects Without Pain” goes down that bloodied road, reliving the pain and anger of separating from someone or something you know and love. From the moment it gets under way, the pressure is palpable, the emotion pouring from the heart as if blood from a mortal wound. In fact, the band itself did go through the ending of a long relationship when vocalist/guitarist Demian Johnston and bassist Shane Mehling parted ways with drummer Phil Petrocelli and replaced him with Nickolis Parks, and that new trio fires on all cylinders on this record.
“Dragged Home Alive” slowly dawns and sets in its claws before wrenching howls gut you, turning on the intensity. The other Great ~ Falls (Australian band of the same name) singer Lillian Albazi makes her first appearance as she whispers, “Wait, there’s no escape,” a harbinger of the chaos to come as everything comes unglued. “There is no escape from this place!” Johnston wails as the walls come down, crushing with weight and power, smothering as the guitars ache, wails jolt, and the noise spills out. “Born As an Argument” has guitars engulfing out of a burst of noise, the cries scathing and scratching at wounded flesh, everything feeling frustrated and on fire. In fact, things turn even more volcanic before calm finally enters, cooling your pained nerves. Albazi’s voice calls out from the distance, layers thicken, and we bleed into “Old Words Worn Thin” that rivets with strange beats before it’s on top of you, chewing off your face.
“Spill Into the Aisle” opens with Albazi whispering, haunting your dreams, the bass emerging and chugging, savage howls rushing down a hill, barreling toward you. The bruising fury continues to gnaw at you, everything aggravates the pain that just won’t subside, vicious guitars aching and resting your head in its quivering lap. “Ceilings Inch Closer” eases in, letting the emotion take hold before everything comes unglued. Guitars race and slide into mud, the wiry panic eating at your mind, melting over circuit boards like an old candle flowing and hardening. Closer “Thrown Against the Waves” runs 12:40, and it drains every last bit of strength you have left inside of you. The assault is insanely heavy, going in and out of warmth and freezing, throbbing and thrashing with ill intent. The drums then mash as the playing lumbers, melting and stretching flesh, feeling like a rainy, saturating front that is just getting under way. Excuse me while I go scream into a pillow. (Sept. 15)
For more on the band, go here: https://www.facebook.com/GreatFallsNoise
To buy the album (US), go here: https://neurotrecordings.merchtable.com/artists/great-falls
Or here (UK): https://deathwishinc.eu/collections/neurot
For more on the label, go here: https://www.neurotrecordings.com/
Meat Mead Metal 