BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA “The Weight Of The Feeble” 1”CDR, 2003 PACREC

Nothing more and nothing less than six years have passed since the release of the legendary collaboration between John ‘Deathpile’ Canady and Scott ‘Gruntsplatter’ Candey under the moniker of Blunt Force Trauma, and surprisingly ‘Bled Out’, the resultant CD, keeps on sounding extremely fresh nowadays. Maybe this fact explains the disappointing lack of recognition that it suffered and its increment of popularity with the pass of time, which proves its visionary quality at certain extent.

And now, while part of the scene claims for a follower of the occasional reunion, PacRec puts out one of its ultra-limited CD-R cards (48 copies this time) bringing light and hope to all of them. More when its content was recorded like 3-4 months ago in words of Scott, although Phil Blankenship argues that for the task, he used the original tapes that Canady sent him years back. But in any case this is good news, because these five minutes and twenty five seconds demonstrate the good shape of the project after all this time.

And how the recent sound relates to the past oeuvre? Any significant change? Well, ‘Bled Out’ stood for intensity and density, and from that point of view, very few or not changes at all can be remarked, since it seems that the approach remains inalterable. But anyway, I would like to mention a certain sense of evolution in terms of textures, probably due to an improvement of gear, quite reasonable after all, and to a more mature compositional sense, I guess. On the other hand, the particular newest track seems to illustrate a more defined atmospheric, less crunchy approach, even if the totality still is absolutely abrasive (those who aren’t aware of the prior Malsonus edition: don’t expect Dark Ambient or something like that); and regarding elaboration, the final result accomplishes all the expectations and even more, because intricacy and complication keep on being the main keys.

So to conclude, even if the piece becomes a must for the fans of the project, its true value lies in the possibility of a future continuation that this succeeding exhibition may be announcing for the near future. Can such a proof of current validity end with just this couple of releases? Mmm… The masters come to my mind in this precise moment: ‘twice is not enough’…

Marcos Alcocer