After seeing Maurice (Gnaw Their Tongues and numerous other projects) play live with Gnaw Their Tongues in Alkmaar last year, I was horrified and intrigued by the project at the same time. I knew Gnaw Their Tongues for over a year and i listened and bought several albums of GTT. After his last release ‘Hymns For The Broken, Swollen And Silent’ in 2016, Maurice took the focus of GTT in 2017 and now has released this cavernous, horrifying album called ‘Genocidal Majesty’.
You can say that GTT isn't for the people who listen to the average type of music. If you have a little bit of knowledge of what GTT is, you will understand why i gave that little disclaimer. You know what you are going to get. Industrial noises mixed with horror and elements of black metal.
You don’t listen to a GTT album and expect to say that ‘Cold Oven’ or ‘Spirits Broken By Swords’ is your favourite song to ‘listen’ to. Like many other releases of Gnaw Their Tongues, this is an album you will have to endure instead of listen to it. After you are done with this album, you will feel an eerie presence and you will feel uncomfortable. That is the effect ‘Genocidal Majesty’ has.
What really got me twisted are the howling screams you will hear on ‘The Doctrine Of Paranoid Seraphims’. Those will continue to stick in my head and haunt me for a while. And that is just a small example of what this album will do with you.
The album cannot be described as an genre you will find in the general music scene. Experimental, industrial could be the two most describable genres you will have to use when identifying Gnaw Their Tongues.
‘Genocidal Pact’ isn’t a standout album for Gnaw Their Tongues. It has hard to put one album that has made the most impression on me but ‘Genocidal Pact’ has certainly scared me. The effect that ‘Genocidal Pact’ has reminds me a lot of the effect that K.F.R./ Faceless Entity and Stalaggh has put me through. If you combines all of those projects together, you will have Gnaw Their Tongues.
If you dare to listen, try it.
~Bonno