One of my most anticipated albums of 2020 was
Sightless Pit’s debut
Grave of a Dog. Encase this is your first time encountering anyone writing about the band, Sightless Pit is Lee Buford of sound-shock ensemble The Body, Kristine Hayter of the avant-garde experiment in self-emulation Lingua Ignota, and Dylan Walker of death metal and power-violence act Full of Hell. Both Hayter and Walker released two of my favorite albums of 2019, and the last Lingua Ignota release even made it into my top ten. Needless to say, expectations for
Grave of a Dog suffering on clouds by the time I got my hands on it. "How did things pan out?" you're probably asking. Well... fine. I like it fine. It’s just not a particularly memorable album. Unfortunately, nothing on here grabs me the way that the individual catalogs of the band's contributors have. It’s a highly collaborative album, approached without a blueprint. As I’m sure you’ve gathered from my jazz reviews, I’m not one to turn my nose up at improvisation, but I don’t think this method of songwriting helped give any of the individual songs the focus they need, and certainly didn't encourage the band to refine and shape the elements of the songs each song that works best. There are some cool moments here, though. “Kingscorpse” starts out with a David Byrne-esque wail before transitioning into a Street Sect like conflagration, “Immersion Dispersal” is a John Carpenter-esque trip through a black hole made of death vocals and pitch-shifts borrowed from Author and Punisher, “Drunk On Marrow” has some absolutely fried sounding electronics, that sputter hypnotically over several dramatic orchestral accompaniments, and “Whom The Devil Long Sought To” features unsettling interplay between an abusive baseline and an ineffectual, and harried sting instrument of unknown origin, before erupting into a grease-fire crescendo, and I love, absolutely love, the pensive atmosphere of closer “Love Is Dead, All Love Is Dead.” Probably the most impressive part of
Grave of a Dog is its overall effect. It's an industrial rock album that manages to invoke an organic, earthen feel that allows you to experience the sensation blood pulsing and the muscles shifting just below the surface. However, I need a little more than great atmosphere and good textures to sell me on an album with this many famous monsters in its drawing-room.
If
Grave of a Dog sounds interesting to you, consider picking up a copy from Chicago's own Thrill Jockey,
here.
