Homeskin is a solo black metal project of audio engineer and heavy sound architect Garry Brents. I'm not sure what the intentions for the project are, of whether he went into it with any other goal than to make wild, raw and depressive black metal. However oblique his motivations, the effects on the receiving end are indisputable- Homeskin is a vigorously compelling nightmare.
Garry's latest release Integument Crystallization is his first of 2022 and follows two excellent EP in 2021. Like all of his albums, Integument Crystallization was recorded and uploaded to Bandcamp in less than 20 hours, meaning that there is a minimal gestation period between when these songs flow out of the artist's consciousness, through his instruments and throat, captured by a recording device, and then foisted upon your ears. It's almost as raw as a live set but retains the aura and intrigue of an occult recording- one emerging from parts unknown by people of obscure and wicked origins. I'm always impressed when a black metal project is able to maintain this kind of tension. Preserving some essential, diabolical energy and clandestine intrigue, while not being shy about letting you in on the identity of the man behind the curtain.
Part of what helps Homeskin achieve its essence of intrigue is just how very human it feels and how it leverages that humanity to illicit a sense of terror in the listener. The vocal work on Integument Crystallization is amongst some of the rawest I have ever heard. It is a cliche to say that a black metal singer sounds like they are in literal pain, but Garry literally sounds like he is actually being skinned alive here. He isn't singing as much as he is deliriously shrieking. It's a lot to take in on your first couple of listens and the way that it is embedded in the corrosive production and feedback significantly heightens the desperation on display. The way that the feedback works is also alarming, as it has this wrapped and tarnished quality, like it was the victim of some careless submersion in saltwater, where every bend and moment of strain will make you feel like you've suffered a kind of acute inner ear damage. I actually thought I might have been losing my hearing a bit while listening to the album, only to hit the pause button and feel my sense of spatial awareness return to normal. This has not happened to me while listening to an album before, and as I said, it is extremely disconcerting.
The last element to this horror show I'd like to draw your attention to, and possibly the most key, is the combination of the drum work and guitar melodies that all this murk and peril is tacked to. These aren't your traditional blast-beats and icy guitar combos, even if they are played about as fast. Instead, the rhythms and melodies of these songs are closer to that of alternative rock and post-punk, only mercilessly sped up, to the point of being cruel. These decidedly unmetal grooves have the opposite effect of what you would expect, causing tracks like "Between Paint Drying and the Fear of Broken Pipe Dreams" to sound like someone overdubbed an exorcism over a copy of Loveless, and parts of "Peel Then Sink" give the impression of what Pere Ubu would have produced had they fallen in with a heretical splinter sect of the Church of Satan. Oddly enough, "Crystalline" even has a kind of progressive quality to its structure that is not just reminiscent of '90s shoegaze but '00s J-Rock as well, with a superimposition of Hammer Horror organs shrowding its facade like a death mask.
All of these awful facets and fearfully expressive motifs align to telecast a vision of a man fighting for his life against paranatural forces, and hardly winning. Integument Crystallization is incredibly fucked up and exhilarating, and brimming with horrible promise. Don't deprive yourself of its dark pleasures.