Article By: Brian Halsey ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway
I’m gonna be honest. I took this on as a personal challenge. It’s basically impossible for me to be turned off by the abrasiveness of a metal band’s sound of choice.
Understand this: GNAW THEIR TONGUES will claw at your brain until the day you fucking die. It’s not so much music as it is an attempt to push the boundaries of what can be done with dissonant noise before people start laying down in front of lawnmowers, like in that Mark Wahlberg movie where trees just start to make people kill themselves for no reason.
GNAW THEIR TONGUES is an experimental musical project started by Dutch multi-instrumentalist and composer Maurice de Jong, otherwise known as Mories. It was founded in 2004, and produced a début album in 2006 entitled ‘Spit at Me and Wreak Havoc on My Flesh’.[1]
The output of GNAW THEIR TONGUES is extensive, with over thirty releases being attributed to its name. The name of the project is taken from passage 16:10-11 from the Book of Revelation (WIKIPEDIA, bro).
GNAW THEIR TONGUES is also primal, savage darkness in its most brutal form. ‘Genocidal Majesty’ is an ultra-dark hybrid of industrial black metal and heavily distorted noise. It’s best to look at the entire work rather than go song by song.
The album plays like a spiraling descent into the pits of (ov) Hell. Layers upon layers of harsh and ugly sound, all seeming to bury one another in sequence. Despite its grim brutality, the music is not without merit. The blackened apocalyptic landscape presents an opportunity to be inhabited by the mutants who have adapted to survive in such turmoil. If you paint or write (about really horrific subject matter) this could be a go-to soundtrack.
Dear Average Metalhead (aka the guy who thinks underground is when Soulfly covers Sepultura), don’t go near this shit. But for all the real maniacs left, the people who are still eating Tide pods even though it’s not cool anymore… listen to GNAW THEIR TONGUES.
I can’t tell you what song to start with, it’d be pointless. It’s just 30 minutes of ripping your guts out and making you question whether anything in the world is worth saving. I don’t mean any of the things I’ve said to be derogatory, as I’m pretty sure the effect on the listener is very measured.
For fans of ear-piercing and indecipherable shrieks, wild electronic drum noise, dark static feedback, and layered death clanging that will rattle your bones. If you need me, I’ll be listening to “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” on repeat until my all-consuming angst subsides. Thanks for reading.
(1. five crying face emojis in a row).
Enjoy GNAW THEIR TONGUES, grab the ‘Genocidal Majesty’ album on Bandcamp – they have it on Vinyl, CD, Cassette, and Digital.
