Crash Worship – Asesinos

Probably the WORST thing this band has released. Studio work that can't decide to be true Crash Worship or if it's trying to be a rock album trying to reach Pop charts. They are great. This album is horrible digital processed crap. Only for the Crash Worship completist .

Although the percussive vocabulary is something along the lines of MUSLIMGAUZE's, musically they are probably closer to TEST DEPT - combining an experimental attitude with hard, driving drumming. Their live show is said to be equally as wonderful, and to this reviewer, a long-time fan of TEST DEPT. I'd say this album would be equally as fulfilling for anyone who likes TD's music. "Starring" is a slow, moody piece whose most obvious motif is a combination of what sounds like beaten strings (akin to dulciner), warped bass/guitar sounding like an intoxicated MICK KHAN, and deep, distant resonant drums. With this they immediately establish themselves as having a distinctive sound. "Catatonic Dance" is a faster rhythmic piece with a tight, complex electronic sound (which I feel is more due to FX & odd instruments/playing than it is to such over-worn clichés as synths - which do rise now & again out of the soup). The result is an ever-growing intense wall of metamorphic sound-shapes, hot with raw electricity. "10000 Things" is an even faster thing, a runaway drum machine pattern over which guitars & electronics form a warped wall of raw, heat-bleached noise. Other string instruments, strangely flat-twangy as if pedal-tuned, rise & fall. A wild voice, shouting curses or invocations like a wasteland Witchdoctor, heralds a change to a more relaxed, passive-yet-hard-edged rhythm titled "Flow" - mysterious and insistant, it has a driving double beat hidden amidst it's hammering & free-fall scaling whining synth. "Dagaz" is a more Oriental-sounding thing, as if influenced by Temple Music. It combines gongs, chimes, bells with a sort of flat metal, gong-like thing (but a little more like the baking tray in your Mum's cupboard) and tuned percussion akin to gamelan. Weird sounds like the warping guitar join in, creating a gentle yet crisply brittle atmosphere. Animal-like grunts introduce "Sendero Luminoso" which continues directly in the wake of the previous track. This is a more mysteriously thing, with slowed-down human voice blending into the calm Ethnic rhythm. This transmutes into a more Indian-sounding piece, with tinny drums replacing tabla, arid thickened sitar-like instruments. The addition of drifting, slightly chilling electronics, on and occasionally over the edge of feedback, make this another strange atmosphere. "Blood-Birth" again rises out of the ashes of the previous piece, using muted, wooden, flat-sounding percussion over which snatches of voice are heard while a tension of metal cycles in the background. "GE ROUGE" has more of a live sound, built on a surprisingly simple drum beat which gains in intensity like some slow but driving trance ritual. This again reminds me of TEST DEPT. with similar aggressive vocals to their early stuff, and the incentive to 'move'. "Discordia" combines heartbeat. bass drum with BURUNDI-like dance intensity while the vocalist whispers the evocation "whatever your hand findeth" . A straight-ish track with moments of weirdness. "Pillar Of Fire" is a bizarre junk sculpture in rhythm, bright and happy in it's self-contained madness, A pop remix from the inner lands of Lunacy. "Bhairava" builds whispered vocals, intensifying while the bass phases up & down. A female vocalist sounding a little like a cross between LINDA LUDUS & ANNA PALM adds another slightly warped element to the already distinctly odd pitch-curving which is their own. "Shadow Weapon" again chooses an atmospheric Ethnic drum pattern over which deep Indian tabla/sitar sounds blend in intense trance mood, a driving hypnotic thing full of bludgeoning passion, which is transformed through electronics & grungy FX into "Phoenix Ixtasis (C.R.A.S.H.)" which continues to explore the theme from a thicker & more claustrophobic angle. The drumming, with acoustics as recorded in a dry sewer, raises the tempreture, heats the blood in a dervish dance full of distorted, barely-discernable noises, culminating in an exhausted Industrial shape-shifting pattern.

Originally reviewed for Soft Watch.

This was one of the first releases for Cold Spring back in 1992. It was a compilation of work featuring mostly drum and percussion pieces.
There are some good textures and sounds on this album, like the bending percussion on the first track – 'Starring'. Other tracks like 'Catatonic Dance' move into a different area with its effected rhythms. '1000 Things' speeds up in tempo, building up to include some interesting instrumentation. 'Blood Birth' includes vocals blended into its loose rhythms. Some tracks verge on African rhythms and textures while the final track evolves into a distorted array of tribal drumming.