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Attrition
...This Death House

Two Gods

Posted: Tuesday, April 01, 2008
By: Matthew Johnson
Assistant Editor

Remastered and reissued for the first time in a decade, the latest version of ...This Death House, Attrition's first official release, holds up surprisingly well. Sure, it lacks the polish of the seminal darkwave act's later work; you won't find a lot of guest violins or operatic vocals here, or even the industrially-tinged goth of The Fiftieth Gate, but founder Martin Bowes' penchant for evocative electronic soundscapes and dark ambient moods is already in evidence. Consisting of two 23-minute tracks, ...This Death House is a primitive but effective excursion into bleak atmospheric manipulation. "Crawling" is eerie soundtrack stuff in the vein of such Bowes contemporaries as Lustmord and SPK, all low-end analog drones and bass-heavy fuzz. While occasional randomized beeps in the vein of old science fiction films do date the track somewhat, these sudden bursts are more startling than campy, giving the song a retro but unsettling tone not unlike John Carpenter's earliest soundtrack compositions. "Dead of Night" is harsher and heavier, less subtly chilling than deliberately noisy, with rumbling industrialized percussion shaking the foundations while squealing sirens and grating squeaks loop up above. With its electronic mewling and rubbery squeaks contrasted against oppressive layers of distortion, it manages to be confrontational without resorting to the punishing frequencies and high-volume feedback of fellow sonic pioneers of the time like Boyd Rice or Whitehouse. While fans of Attrition's more polished, classically-inspired work might find ...This Death House to be a bit raw for their taste, these early experiments offer an intriguing insight into Bowes' take on dark ambient music, and make for an interesting contrast with his recently released All Mine Enemys Whispers, a more polished take on similarly morbid themes.