Whiteout Full-Length Out NOW On Noise Appeal Records
Vienna-based industrial/post-rock veterans PHAL:ANGST today unveil their new video for “Severance.” Now playing courtesy of MetalSucks, the track comes by way of the band’s fifth full-length, Whiteout, out TODAY (fittingly, Friday the 13th) via Noise Appeal Records.
For the first time in PHAL:ANGST’s winding history, an artist not part of the immediate band collective created a video for them: FAZO666FAZO. The musician and label colleague (Baits, Deathdeathdeath) is also a visual artist and especially known for his animation videos. But here he returns to one of his favorite old genres: the video collage. With “Severance,” FAZO666FAZO made a very coherent mash up video out of old web archive clips which tells the story of (possible) life: Birth, transience, adolescence, sex, death, dance, sleep, and the final farewell.
Writes MetalSucks, “The slow-burning beats and soundscapes are made significantly more creepy by the visual, which shows a series of increasingly-weird VHS-quality clips while the beat pulses underneath.”
Whiteout is out now on CD, cassette, and digitally. Order yours at THIS LOCATION.
The music contained within Whiteout bears the hallmarks of an exceptionally individualistic, if not idiosyncratic, band. There are no “songs” in the traditional sense of the word; instead, there are sticky, cinematographic sound epics which meander through numerous atmospheres and temperaments. These are frequently dystopic, melancholic, but also hyper harmonic with a distinct penchant for romanticism. This time, distorted eruptions of rage have been reduced in favor of more reverbed Southern Gothic, dulcet metallophone, subtle dub breaks, and rhythmic vocal samples with stomping beats in slow motion. It’s a work that demands patience, quietude, and attention from its listeners… And possibly mental resilience. When the repetitive line, “So also ist das Sterben” (So this is what it’s like to die), from the album’s closing carries the listener beyond the realm of the living on a crescendo of noise and harmony, one can appreciate the cerebral magic of PHAL:ANGST’s sonic sphere.
Whiteout includes remixes by industrial/dark ambient icons Brian Williams AKA Lustmord (Current 93, Nurse With Wound, SPK, Terror Against Terror) and Jarboe (Swans), two musicians who have had a fundamental impact on the work of PHAL:ANGST.
The artwork was designed using photos by Kurt Prinz, pictures that were partly featured in the book Sezierte Architektur (“dissected architecture”), only adding to the record’s disquieting vibe.
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