Body Cargo / Pogrom – Resistance CD Terror / Cipher Productions 2012

As a split / collaborative release, this thematically focuses on the album’s title, albeit in markedly different contexts as indicated within the promo blub: “This album has united two Lithuanian projects under a theme of resistance. Papua New Guinea cannibals’ resistance against outsider effects is different from resistance of interwar period Lithuanian guerrillas, but you can find these associations on a musical plane, and Body Cargo and Pogrom each present their own interpretations”.  Regarding the format, both acts are well suited to this pairing as they travel very similar sonic terrains.   Here each act provides four tracks in addition to two collaborative tracks for good measure (each provides vocals for a track of the other).

Body Cargo is up first and although billed as ‘post-mortem’, they effectively deliver death industrial at its most lo-fi and dirty, where echoed, muddied and morbid analogue sonics are the order of the day.  ‘Black Smoke Obelisks’ provides an extended nightmare of muffled factory drones and croaked deathly vocals over what may or may not be sonically buried orchestral / radio samples.  ‘Gutpath’ presents a more forceful framework, consisting of a malfunctioning conveyor belt type rhythmic element, various distortions layers and a sampled / looped tribal chanted vocal for good measure. Alternately ‘Sacred is all Red’ presents a more meditative, muffled and windswept industrial / drone piece.  For Body Cargo’s final track (and the first collaborative track with Pogrom on vocals), is ‘Resistance (Survival Method)’, which delivers a great multi-textured death industrial piece of swelling / driving layers, vague pounding rhythms and waiving distorted vocal lurking within the sonic mass.

Moving on to Pogrom’s half, they approach their sound with a little more vigour, pushing their tracks towards a power electronics tone, but still sheathed in a heavy dose of muffled lo fi production. ‘Resistance (Guerrilla Method)’ is Pogrom’s first track (and last of the collaborative tracks), featuring muffled, idling factory machine sounds and morbid, catatonically spoken vocals of Body Cargo, which functions as a great introduction for Pogrom.  Next track ‘Dar negimes (Igarka)’ amps things up along the power electronics line/ sound with crude, nasty, scuzzy, no frills squalls of distortion and distorted vocal abuse. Likewise ‘Toks melsvas vakaras…’ balances the line between death industrial and power electronics sounds, with morbid spoken vocals, grinding industrial undercurrent and forceful squalls of distortion.  Final track ‘Girioj gules’ takes a slightly different tangent, where it commences with a maudlin solo folk type vocal sample, before succumbing to a muffled mass of grinding death industrial sounds, which also includes a sampled piano accompaniment to play the track though to its conclusion.

Taken in totality this is certainly a grim and harrowing release from these two aligned projects (which is a compliment for this style of music), rounded out with cover artwork which is also suitably old school and lo-fi with its black and white, cut and paste aesthetic.