Cara Neir - Venowl - split
Broken Limbs Recordings
Atmospheric Post-Rock Crust Punk / Blackened Doom Noise
4 songs (32'18")
Release year: 2014
Broken Limbs Recordings
Reviewed by Alex

Cara Neir and Venowl apparently share members, but stylistically little unites these two projects. While Cara Neir is atmospheric post-everything with multiple personalities showing up in every track, Venowl is single focused on blackened doomy noise.

When I say post-everything about Cara Neir, the band can start as an atmospheric black metal on Aeonian Temple, and then go into post-core breakdown. Nights is watery post-rock percussive piece, with nice layering displayed when the sound is fully developed. Cold fall guitar notes ride atop rumbling bass/percussion coupled with wistful whispers for full immersion. Only Pitiful Human Beings brings the advertised crust punk, but even those 1-2 note urgent riffs come with atmospheric quality to them. It is if everything guitars in Cara Neir has to resonate for a few seconds after a string touch. Even then the band can’t stay in the punky territory (something I was looking forward to) and the end of Pitiful Human Beings takes the tempo down completely, destroying the riffs into another atmospheric breakdown. Cara Neir side of the split felt more for when you sort of want to rock it out, but feel a little under the weather and ultimately want to cuddle up with your cat and a cup of chicken soup.

Venowl is an entirely different experience. This is what I call dungeon doom with noise and distortion raised beyond reasonable. The whole 20 min is a slow crawl, possessed by craziness and dementia, where everything around seems horror, and, if you had your doubts, periodic manic shriek will alleviate that. I could have called this funeral doom, but for me that notion is associated more with grieving melodies, and there is none of that on Scour. The composition is supposed to be two parts, but I’d be damned if I knew when Part 1 ended and Part 2 began. 10:30 mark, perhaps? Especially since soon thereafter there is a growly bear melody appearance, if you can call it that. Such static audiotorture is definitely not my preferred music. There is no emotion in this that I feel, just noise, until rigor mortis finally sets in. If you like Stallagh or Rigor Sardonicous, perhaps you will appreciate Venowl.

I may fall into the pitiful human beings category here, but neither side of the split appealed to me much.

Killing Songs :
Parts of Pitiful Human Beings
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