GORE "Hart Gore" eight / ten "Mean Man's Dream" nine / ten (Southern Lord)

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Heavy music fanatics and metal historians will need no introduction to Gore and should hopefully recognise how essential this massive double disc document collecting this Dutch intstru-metal power-trio's first two albums is. However, those unfamiliar with the all-time greatest practitioners of confrontational, minimalist sludge should read on and get acquainted.

Although now considered progenitors of that 'genre', Gore didn't really fit in anywhere in their time (save a few lazy comparisons to Swans, Killing Joke, the Melvins), but I for one am happy Southern Lord have offered Gore's influential records the chance of reappraisal because their music feels so timeless on these reissues.

So timeless in fact, that some fans will always think of these albums as the aural embodiment of strength, physicality, brutality and aggression at their deadliest, ugliest and most inhuman. This stuff is so crushing, pummelling, mesmerizing, hypnotic, angular and abrasive that it could conceivably bludgeon you to death if played at sufficient volume. However, their repetitive riffs are as impossibly catchy as they are punishing and as hummable and groovy as they are destructive. So in that respect, these albums totally fit into the Southern Lord label's aesthetics, that of 'maximum volume yields maximum results'.

Uniquely, Gore included supplemental lyric sheets with both albums, but no attempt was ever made to incorporate them. No words are possible, or necessary to describe such a barbarous assault. The artwork, of a samurai sword literally goring a pig's heart on 'Hart Gore', goes a lot further in this respect. It's simple, clinical and frightening, like the music. This unsettling image also adorns the cover of the expanded 2xCD edition, but the expansions are this collections greatest downfall; the excessive 10+ live bonus tracks on each disc are overkill.

Together the two albums play like parts one and two of a seamless, continuous cycle of harsh, heavy, nihilistic battery and sadomasochistic butchery without end or purpose. Though if push came to shove, I'd opt for 'Mean Man's Dream', it's at once more extreme yet more refined and thought out.

Thankfully though, unlike most other formulaic instrumental bands (and to their strength) Gore never evolved to utilise dynamics or flashy time changes.

This is powerful, pathologically male, relentless minimal music, devoid of any respite or charismatic centre (no voice, no solos, never more than 2-3 riffs per song) and everything about these discs is simplistic and utterly loud.

So be under no illusions that this music is polite or courteous. It will simply come to your party uninvited, steal your beer, shit in your sink, and then laugh, leaving you with your jaw on the floor, wishing you could be half as cool.

Keefe Murphy
www.southernlord.com

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