Dominator FLAC

I have only heard one album by WHITEHOUSE, and that only twice, but there is no doubt in my mind that if you like WHITEHOUSE, you’ll like this.
The opening track “Swallow Me” consists of a wall of noise over which screams a high-pitched noise guaranteed to make your ears curl up with pain. Over this cacophony the vocalist shouts his words, from a distance (he obviously doesn’t want to lose his hearing) and through echo chambers. The second track “Necrophilia” is a little more interesting - there’s a phasing, warping bass track over which all manner of distorted noises grate and scrape while a rising and falling screech cuts through the cerebral cortex with steel talons. “Cot Death” opens with the crying of an infant as the dissonant scream of noise that is DOMINATOR fades in with the vocalist a surfing speck atop the tidal wave of pain-noise. The first side heads towards blessed silence with "S & M”, yet another wall of pain-inducing noise, this time with a thunderous slow beat rising through the swirling noiscape and the vocalist taking a back seat.

The second side is taken up by a live recording simply entitled “Live Action 21/6/89”. The recording begins as the noise (bass guitar?) fights to dominate a taped fanfare combining with it surprisingly well. Other sounds fight through and the vocalist makes himself known through the mass. Then, suddenly, when you think yourself safe, those dangerous frequencies burn through your speakers and into your poor head, ever changing, evolving, devolving into things that have no right to exist on magnetic tape. It has to be said that, headache apart, I enjoyed this side much better. The sound still threatened to split your skull, but at least there was variety there, within the core of this other-dimension Anti-Sun. It finally ends with a distorted snatch of “Singin’ In The Rain" allowing the poor shaken reviewer reprieve to go get a coffee and a couple of Paracetamol.

These are the children of PIERRE GAVRAUD, who discovered the destructive power of frequency Seven, the seven-cycle-per-second tone which, if experienced in small amounts could induce nausia, and in heavier doses, do terrible - and terminal - things to the viscera. Just pray they never get hold of that machine!

Originally reviewed for Soft Watch.