DRAGGED INTO SUNLIGHT

If you are familiar with the terms "scathing," "abrasive," "acidic", or "corrosive," then you are halfway to understanding what DRAGGED INTO SUNLIGHT's "Hatred for Mankind" is all about. The half to which I refer is that associated with the UK rabble's penchant for creating a kind of blackened, DM-infused, sludge with piercing guitar tone, horrific shrieks punctuated with death growls , and — from the outside hearing in — a disorienting cacophony of white noise terror. And Billy Anderson was involved on the production side (with Tom Dring) of this caustic creation. Go figure, right?

A chunk of that other half pertains to the fact that as much as sludge may figure into the equation (certainly from a sonic perspective) it is not necessarily the driving force, especially since there is more up than down in the tempos. The remaining hunk of that half involves a degree of melody (in a DM sense) swimming around in those murky waters that makes these involved cuts much more inviting than your typical sludge – or death for that matter — release. That ugliness of the morass and hatefulness of the message just requires a couple of spins to appreciate the dynamics involved or, put another way, the rays of light that managed to shine through the dense smog. That and the fact that the DRAGGED INTO SUNLIGHT boys possess a firm grip on compositional shift, otherwise known as brilliant segues into neck-snapping riff changeups and punishing grooves. This is also one of those rare albums on which frequent use of movie samples is integral to the songs; it is evident in a big way on opener "Boiled Angel". Hell, you'll even run into a brief segment of clean vocalizing/chanting on "I, Aurora". By Goat, there is memorably arranged songwriting going on here!

Wrapping up with five and a half minutes of distortion swirls, feedback, and samples on "Totem of Skulls" is less than climatic, but fitting nonetheless. Good move by Prosthetic for recognizing the power of "Hatred for Mankind" when it was originally released by Mordgrimm Records in 2009 — a label that will be giving this ugly son of a bitch the vinyl treatment this year — and seeking to spread it further with its own re-release. Your ears having been heading south for years so might as well finish 'em off with "Hatred for Mankind".