THE CHRIST PUNCHERS - PSALMS FOR A NEW DARK AGE

Ok, so I was warned up front when I picked up this CD.  I know virtually nothing about this band.  I haven't even looked them up online yet.  I've basically dumped the CD on my iphone and spent the day wandering around listening to it on my headphones.  

And wow...

This isn't a band for the average listener.  The best way I can describe this group is to call them metal's answer to jazz.  It's instrumental metal with an exorcist subtext.

The cuts are deep and sound like they've been cobbled together from every punk/hardcore breakdown you've ever heard in your entire life.  This band definitely likes to spend it's time close to the floor.

As I listened to the disc, each song built a sense of anticipation in me that never fully paid off.  The songs create a tense progression that doesn't go anywhere and leaves me feeling unresolved.  Sometimes the songs loop themselves into drones.

It's hard to actually describe or dialog about the individual tracks because they are mostly very simple breakdown motifs that repeat over and over for the duration.  There's a great deal of atmosphere in between the tracks and sometimes recorded vocals taken from strange clinical information films is slowed down to a disturbing speed and played along with the music.

They seem to want to demonstrate the absurdity of mass media marketing and how creepy the undercurrent of social thought in america is.  It borders on the insane and the absurd.  I'd have to listen closer to the looped spoken words played over the music to fully understand what the group is actually trying to say, but I will say this much...  

This band would be perfect scoring some highly creepy horror films.  Or work by Dario Argento.

Ultimately, this isn't a disc I would pick up and play in heavy rotation.  But it is a disc I could listen to under the right circumstances and when I was in the right mood.  My final words:  SOUNDS LIKE THE SCORE TO A SHORT HORROR FLICK BY AN ITALIAN SLASHER DIRECTOR.

THE CHRIST PUNCHERS - PSALMS FOR A NEW DARK AGE

01. Trinity

02. Tread Of The Iron Legion

03. Destroying Angel Descends

04. The New Deal

05. You're The Problem

06. HAARP

07. Be Like Tom G.

08. Burning Bridge To A Fallen Empire

09. Soma 

10. Propaganda And The Control Of The Human Mind