Robedoor: Closer to the Cliff
Interregnum

In the words of LA duo Alex and Britt, Robedoor gives birth to “(f)our fresh comas for the old and eyeless” on the pair's latest meltdown Closer to the Cliff. Mastered by noise specialist Lasse Marhaug, the release offers four convulsive drones guaranteed to permanently cripple your sound system. In “Divination Calling,” moaning voices emanate from the center of a hellish inferno and are almost obliterated by a cyclonic squall of bass distortion. Imagine a ripple of black noise amplified a thousandfold and you're almost there. The second piece, “Cocoon of the Cross,” is peaceful by comparison—or at least is so during its opening seven minutes until its bright theme begins to drown in a black sea of industrial rumble; surprisingly, though, Robedoor opts to eventually subdue the beast instead of unleashing it, and thereby provides the grateful listener with a few moments of relative calm. “White Eyes / White Wall” revisits the opening track's style: writhing clouds roll into view, swallowing everything in their path and, even though some monstrosity can be heard screaming from within, the grinding mass is so dense it renders the howl a blur. Like the other pieces, the fifteen-minute closer “Tethered Outside Creation” grows from a benign seed into a massive viral cloud that slowly drapes its black soot over everything. Closer to the Cliff comes as close as anything possibly could to capturing what the earth's dying moments might sound like.

March 2008