Knot of Fire - Tempest Over Refuge

What do I have here today is an album from the newborn project Knot of Fire that is based in US. There is not much information about this band; I couldn't collect anything even from their official site. Anyhow, here they are with their debut album called 'Tempest over Refuge'.

I can understand from the very beginning of the CD that what they are talking about is a kind of a mix of noise or power electronics with death industrial genre. From the first track "A Critical Time" I am being hit by the wall of distorted background, rolling over and over, without any other additions to embellish the composition. Maybe it was meant to give a listener a kind of preface or something. The following "Where will you be" is more of death industrial origin, where this time the same oppressive atmosphere is supported by repeating on and on the same sentence.

As I go forward with the album playing time, I discover the lack of progress or any kind of change in the music. All the compositions have more or less the same structure, for example "Incision", "Forward", "One Justice" - they all have some kind of heavily distorted and dirty background sound that is guided by a specific conceptual sentence or slogan, circling back and forth. The only difference is in their timbre, higher or lower from track to track, sometimes more aggressive or less harsh, but the idea itself stays the same. I can single out two tracks which have more diverse structure.

"Driven on a Whim" and "Threshold's Edge", both of them based on a kind of sampled melody that is distorted again and supported by cracks and clicks, but emotional interface is more melancholic and nostalgic, like watching old photographs from the beginning of past century, smelling with history and decadence. All the compositions are relatively short; this fact makes them more entertaining, listener doesn't have enough time to get bored from the constant looping of the material.

To make a long story short, the debut album from Knot of Fire is not bad at all. There are no discoveries or revelations inside their music; the presented CD is plain, creating a background atmosphere that is good enough to spend an hour or two spinning it during some routine work. But as for my taste, I expect much more statement or kind of a protest, more energy and storming from that music genre. Still, the project is young, and I eagerly expect their future records while I feel a definite confidence that we will hear from that project again. Jun 11 2012