How to introduce Gnaw Their Tongues?
The best-known project of Surinam-born Dutch creator Mories (Aastraal, Caput Mortuum, Cadaver Shrine, De Magia Veterum, Hagetisse, The Black Mysteries…), it is also his strangest, blending Black Metal, Noise and Experimental Music. The Cessation of Suffering, his fifteenth album, was released in 2023 on the label Consouling Sounds.
I listened to the album in its entirety for the first time before starting to write, not really knowing what to say. Oppression is truly the key word on this record, certainly more than any other. If the mystical choruses of Dreamless, the first track, suggest something ethereal, the noisy elements that follow quickly disprove this theory, making us believe in chaos before ceasing, leaving The Veneer to take over thanks to cold Industrial roots where the musician spreads his leaden screed and a few strange cries. Anxiety takes over, and if you’re in the dark, paranoia sets in, before Salvation Body crushes melancholic piano notes with hellish saturation, from which anguished cries emerge before offering a relatively majestic approach on The Cessation Of Suffering. Don’t take this term literally, as it’s still inhabited by the usual possessed howls and noises, but the eponymous composition is somewhat… impressive, even allowing itself a dissonant keyboard break before setting off on its haunting march again. The musician turns Mensenlucht into a slightly livelier track, slipping in a few electronic beats in the background to give the haze a sort of rhythm before turning more aggressive on the final, then returning to mystical tones on Vengeful Spit, where ghostly screams and a veil of saturation darken the mix, making it almost heady at times. The energetic approach is chosen for Met Huid En Haar, which remains mired in this opaque and disquieting curtain where the bass appears as master to lead us through this maze of effects that leads to Throatrot, where the phenomenon is amplified to create a real sense of unease, making listening almost painful until a gentle melody appears. It eventually fades away with The Departure Of Light, an extremely heavy jerky track that also incorporates a strange vocal sample, half obliterated by the mad banging that only calms down to let Messen offer relatively accessible tones, at least before the vocal parts appear, to finally close the album with its usual intensity.
I don’t know which one is better. By knowing Gnaw Their Tongues, you know what the man’s capable of, and you’ll dread the best (or the worst), but not knowing the project, you’ll be both surprised and horrified. The Cessation of Suffering has redefined the musical terror of 2023.
90/100