Shaving The Werewolf – God Whisperer (EP)
Shaving The Werewolf – God Whisperer (EP)
Self-Released
Release Date: 22/03/24
Running Time: 20:03
Review by Dark Juan
9/10
When you are a person who knows little about mechanics, buying a camper van that qualifies as vintage in two years’ time probably is a bit silly. However, when you have friends who know how oily bits work and are able at spannering, it becomes viable, and so tomorrow Dark Juan and Mrs Dark Juan go to do a little more fettling on the bloody thing and take it to our friend Tony to see whether he might be able to offer pointers on why it runs rougher than a room full of Bradford prostitutes. Plus, I have bought stuff that I need to see if it fits so the gas system works. This could either go well or be absolutely disastrous. If you hear about an explosion in West Yorkshire over the weekend, then this is probably the last review I will ever write.
There are bright sides though.
It is gloriously beige.
Mrs Dark Juan has just injured herself for the 47,000,000th time on a needle (this is not a bright side) and Dark Juan is becoming concerned that her art has turned either hateful or vampiric, and needs blood to drag itself into existence… A bit like Uncle Frank in the first Hellraiser film except with fabric and not from some kind of possessed mattress that appears to be a bizarre corpse storage device which has a hotline to the Order of the Gash.
Nevertheless, we are not here to describe weird movie tropes, (let’s face facts here, Clive Barker is a bit of a perv and there are many questions about him that I DO NOT WANT ANSWERING) we are here to talk about music. Therefore, the Platter of Splatter has once more been called into action, and after a bit of lubrication and appeasing the Machine Gods in order for it to function correctly, it is playing a five-track EP from clearly batshit Norwegian noiseniks Shaving The Werewolf, who describe themselves as “…a psychotic and experimental fusion of noise rock and mathcore and with a healthy metallic ferocity thrown in.”
Well, I don’t know about you, but that sentence has got Dark Juan’s juices flowing and no mistake. Let’s hope I’m not lubing myself up for shenanigans with no reason, eh? Let us plunge headlong into what promises to be a somewhat spasmodic experience…
On the opening effort, ‘Sentient Husk’, Dark Juan’s first thought was, “Oh, so THAT’S what happened to The Locust!” The song is a stabby, rapid, jerky fusion of Strapping Young Lad, the aforementioned mental jazzbastards The Locust and the incredibly catchy BRR BRR DENG of Mathcore-era Mudvayne and it is noisy as fuck and there’s a full-on joie de vivre in the performance of the song that permeates every track on this EP. This band sound like they are enjoying the fuck out of playing something loosely connected to music and this adds real and obvious charm to the music and makes this jaded old hack actually be able torelate to them because they are clearly as hatstand as Dark Juan is.
‘Junk Food’ is the second course (see what I did there? Fuck, I’m getting good at this writing shit now) on this platter of madness and it is literally four minutes of frothing insanity, incoherent barking, what appears to be vomiting and what appears to be a whole band having synchronous seizures while taking inspiration from the demented babbling of Mike Patton fronting Mr. Bungle yet having a rather more Metallic backbone and a worryingly wide-eyed sense of purpose about what they are here to do. Which appears to be to attempt to reduce the listener to a blob of glistening gristle. This meatgrinder of a song is then followed with some terrifying electronics underpinning lightspeed drumming and razor wire guitar work on the title track of the EP, ‘God Whisperer’. If you could imagine Ministry dialling up the speedball-induced Industrial Metal and slamming it into the music of King Satan while taking literally all of the amphetamines while force-feeding The Locust major quantities of LSD, you have an idea of what this horrendous musical carnival of a song sounds like.
On ‘I Came Here To Fuck’, which has immediately become Dark Juan’s entrance tune to absolutely ANY gathering including funerals and church services (assuming I don’t burst into flame the moment I cross the threshold of the False God’s house), we see Shaving The Werewolf morphing into a bizarre Mathcore/ Industrial version of The Dillinger Escape Plan and Pig Destroyer, and having a chorus that REQUIRES any listener to be screaming “I CAME HERE TO FUCK!!!” at immense volumes, no matter where they are, including christenings and court hearings, makes it a song worth listening to 47 times in succession.
Dark Juan didn’t do this in the Schwerer Gothikpanzer on the way home from work. Oh no. Neither did he get a wink and a saucy grin off an octogenarian woman at the traffic lights because he had forgotten that his window was down.
The final offering on this five-track smorgasbord of lunacy is ‘Born To Tremble’ and this fuses Deftones-esque atmospherics with the jerky spazziness of Mudvayne at their most brr brr deng obsessed. It’s not so much a song as the sound of a vocalist having a major, and I mean MAJOR mental breakdown over barely musical guitars and electronics, such is the visceral quality of the music he’s screaming his heart out over.
This is ugly music for ugly people and no mistake. The music (which is most excellently performed by all concerned, by the way) is that heavy and outlandish as to be almost disagreeable in parts, and deeply disturbing as it is so visceral, with lots of guitars screaming and electronics being tortured with red hot pokers and howling violence. If you enjoy a listening experience that is equal parts bludgeoningly heavy, consumed by shrieking madness, staggeringly complex and clearly has an abstruse and unusual sense of humour, you will find Shaving The Werewolf entirely to your liking.
Dark Juan does.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System (det patenterte Dark Juan blodsprut-vurderingssystemet, for våre mange fine og kjekke eller vakre norske venner) is mildly impressed with Shaving The Werewolf and awards them 9/10 for a five-tracker that is chock full of good things. A mark was deducted because a) I am a sadistic bastard, and b) because it wasn’t an album, and it was over too soon and that cannot be countenanced.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Sentient Husk
02. Junk Food
03. God Whisperer
04. I Came Here To Fuck
05. Born To Tremble
LINE-UP:
Snorre – Guitar
Alexander – Bass
Vegard – Trumpet, synthesizer
Ottar – Vocals
Kenneth – Drums
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
