Merzbow - Eucalypse [soleilmoon - 2008]Eucalypse sees Merzbow weaving in a more atmospheric and at times melodic guitar lines and noise textures into his dense noise sound. All to make an album that feels like mixture of the noise cinematics of 07’s Coma Berenices & the emotionally singed guitar and noise scapeing of 06’s Minazo Vol 1 The first thing you’ll notice about the album is it’s impressive and arty packaged which is a rather nice hand-made round wooded box, which is made from Eucalyptus wood. And inside the box along with cd you’ll find four coloured cards with pictures of the Eucalyptus trees and text detailing the albums theme which is all about the damage made to Indians' natural eco system by the introduction of a certain breed of Eucalyptus tree; hence the titles play on the words Eucalyptus and Apocalypse. The album is made up of the Eucalypse parts 1 through to 5 with each running around the ten minute mark a piece. Starting things off we have of course part 1 which is this chugging and crush noise track thats shimmered and weaved by this harmonic, epic, expansive and bright guitar line- giving one the feeling of drifting above the Eucalyptus great height and majestic air. As the tracks progress a darker, angered, discordant and at times almost punk like tone raisers in the tracks; clearly indicate the real damage that these beautiful trees are slow but surely doing to the Indians' eco system. The albums tone is kept suitable atmospheric and cinematic through-out & ever so often the warmer harmonic and slightly psychedelic guitar lines still show them selves with-in the tracks dense sound weaves. Eucalypse is an album that shows Merzbow blanceing noisy chaos with emotional depth & atmospheric air in a way only Merzbow can. Another great Merzbow album -which has added bonus of its distinctive and one of a kind packaging to make it even more appealing. Roger Batty
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