One part creep factor, one part death grind virulence and a pinch of industrial zest to animate the depravity exhumed by Standing on a Floor of Bodies a rightfully named solo experimentation by musical Mengele Mike Stitches of sorely missed and equally repugnant Thousandswilldie fame.
With a life span shy of the 5 minute mark, this release condenses a package of hot-blooded cathartic fury and fear delivered in barbed wire alternation between states of psychosis induced through musical unease, before going completely postal and taking a hatchet to your face. A pathology repeatedly unleashed in spontaneous and varied doses, an approach that consistently remains unsettling.
There is the sense of it missing a piece of the puzzle, something most likely attributed to the lack of a guitar, opting for a one man mission of arbitrary slaughter armed with a bass, drum machine and a fucked up vocal output of gruff lows to blood curdling highs. However it is this missing link that pushes it into the uncomfortable zone, heightened through shocks of industrial maligns thus putting the release on edge all the time. The overwhelming sense of unpredictability and unfamiliar territory factor coalesce for a musical dynamic that can genuinely boast not only musically, but onto the listener also a state of undue paranoia, suspended by the burden of fear.
Opening track (pulse) is a youthful whisper of innocence exploit audio sample of the first verse Antigonish manipulated against unsettling background noise for a classic hide behind the blanket horror theme from the word go. However this manipulation of eeriness is just the starting point and the end point, briefly fracturing through what is for the most part an animalistic mass of grind that relentlessly feels like a deranged life or death scenario.
For a one man endeavour I have to congratulate Mike Stitches (whose surname practically completes the sharp object wielding serial killer vibe) in creating a more immersive and frightful sense of unrelenting horror in probably what entire teams of people with hundreds time’s the budget fail to accomplish in the film industry. However its qualities not only reside in its hair raising ability, it is by all means a well accomplished albeit unique manifestation of the grind formula that should garner substantial merit.
When it comes to his next instalment, if the game plan gets any better, I think its gonna have to be one of those incidences where we swallow our pride and prepare for the possibility of shitting ourselves.
