Last year I was approached by a mysterious gent going by the name of NoOne – he’d seen a piece that was published for ThisIsNotAScene regarding a reissue of an album called Uncovered Ancient Gateways and he was interested in having it published on CVLT Nation. I of course obliged with this request and found myself corresponding with NoOne fairly often, and it was during this correspondence that I was made privy to a new record, Third Wave Holocaust as well as a short film that T.O.M.B. (Total Occultic Mechanical Blasphemy) had created as a companion piece to UAG. Much has been written concerning the lengths NoOne and his shadowy collective will go to in order to create the atmospheres and negative energies surrounding their recordings, and the three minute film that I saw goes a long way to prove just how far NoOne has gone and will go in the future. I’m not at liberty to post said video, but I was given permission to at least upload screenshots. I think it’s much more intriguing to let you make up your own minds as to what is contained on that film. But rest assured, it will give you nightmares.
Third Wave Holocaust is distinctly filthy in tone and the cloying feeling that is a hidden and ghastly presence lurking behind each percussive strike or inhuman howl is wildly overwhelming. The record veers towards a more ambient sound than it’s predecessor (originally released in 2009 and followed by a combination of splits and EPs), and it seems as though NoOne has used the intervening years to fine tune the utter apathy for traditional techniques that T.O.M.B. holds such disregard for in order to create soundscapes of pure and unrelenting detachment from any known world.
“Antagonising the Unknown” forces itself on the psyche with horrific clashes of noise and obstructed vocals that sit back and become at one with the rotten waves of sound that emanate from the crypts and caverns of the mind, whilst “Electric Exorcism” writhes with a desolate and distasteful abhorrence.
The climbing invocation of “NA LA GORE NA” swirls with twisted malevolence, and you’re waiting for the annihilation that must surely come at its end. Gestures of hate are buried within chants and a constantly building wall of sound that threatens and beats with fear and heart-stopping terror, before “Vulgarity” creeps into the fray with a noxious panic that intimidates and controls – because no matter how much you long for it to stop….you cannot tear yourself away from its mesmerising quakes and hypnotic torment.
“Clairvoyant Frequencies” is the sound of summoning and the claustrophobic layers of noise reverberate with tension and a sickening oppression. It’s almost too much to bear at times, and it becomes a genuine struggle to get through the one remaining song. T.O.M.B. is not a project to enjoy or listen to on a daily basis – unless you’re looking to lose your entire mind – but there will be times that you can bring yourself to listen to Third Wave Holocaust, or any other recording by this collective, and those times will be rewarding in only the most obscene ways.
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