Duuude, Tapes! Coltsblood, Beyond the Lake of Madness Demo
Two songs, each clocking in at 14 filth-caked minutes. Coltsblood‘s Beyond the Lake of Madness demo tape isn’t just nasty, it’s fermented. Straddling the line between sludge and doom, the Northern UK trio deal in tender that’s exclusively fucked up, extreme and miserable. It’s a self-recorded and self-released affair, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s a throwaway garage-type demo either — the production might be rough, but particularly in the low end work of bassist/vocalist John, the rawness only adds to the horrific rumble of tone the band emits.
Comprised of John, guitarist Jem and drummer Steve, the three-piece unleash their first disgust-fueled slab in the form of side one’s “Abyss of Aching Insanity.” Presumably that’s where John recorded his vocals, since the shouts seem to echo upward through the morass of speaker-rattling lurch. Noise feels constant but isn’t really, the band operating with a sense of clarity to sound as noise-soaked and fucked up as possible and still have Steve hold the tracks together, loose but solid as Jem sustains riff cycles until the feedback becomes a sort of constant marker of the tension before the next crash. It’s an oozing, excruciating pace they set, John showing a touch of earlier Conan in some of his shouting, and even when “Abyss of Aching Insanity” picks up — as it were — Coltsblood remain mired in muddy, doomed stomp. It feels like an exaggeration to call it glorious, but such purposeful heinousness allows for little less than hyperbole one way or the other.
To that end, no doubt Beyond the Lake of Madness will divide opinion. You’re either going to make it through the wash of noise and feedback — it’s about the last three minutes, give or take — that ends the first of the demo’s two cuts or you’re not. Note, the reward waiting on the other end is more punishment, arriving in the form of “Beneath Black Skies,” a like-minded assault on decency delivered via ultra-weighted tones and bleaker-than-you’re-thinking-of-as-bleak moodiness. The crash is immediate and the rumble consistent, but the pace veers into some legitimate movement approaching the midsection, giving some hint that there’s more to Coltsblood than bad-trip lumbering, John‘s bass setting the course for higher-
tempo runs that sound mean enough digitally but on tape are even dirtier, turning around to more super-slow amelodic collapse, “Beneath Black Skies” following suit with its companion cut in ending noisy, the trio letting the mess make their statement of intent for them.
It is an unremitting way to spend 28 minutes, but thoroughly satisfying when approached on its own level — and perhaps when accompanied by a shower afterwards — and for those who dig physical media nuance, the limited-to-100-copies tape (mine’s #42) comes with a considerable five-panel foldout card with lyrics for both songs, recording info, a download card, band pic and moody, black metal-style artwork. My copy also smells like incense, but I’m not sure if that’s part of the package or just happenstance. Fucking right on multi-sensory experience, in any case.
If you’re not into tapes — not everybody has either a nostalgic angle or a player — Coltsblood have made Beyond the Lake of Madness available to stream via Bandcamp. You can buy it there as well. Here’s the player:
