GNOD Mirrors

Predicting GNOD’s trajectory has become as impossible as it has futile. The Salford-based band have torn their way through brain-haemorrhaging psychedelia, monster drones, minimal techno, avant-garde noise and just about everything in between that’s even loosely connected to those sounds. A ceaseless impulse to move forward charges their music into new territory time and time again and it has made them one of the most exhilarating alternative groups in the UK. On ‘Mirror’ they’ve landed in early ’80s Swans territory, as growling, clattering scrap metal guitars clang and batter the ears. The guttural vocals manage to sound as rasping and fierce as any of the screeching instruments.

It’s a cold, brutal, merciless record that never relents in its attack but it’s an utterly joyous one too, if early Godflesh records being put through a car compactor sounds up your street. It’s only three tracks long but as the end outcome feels like you’ve witnessed a crime or suffered an ordeal of some sort, this is an intensely corporeal record and one you won’t forget listening to in a hurry.