Though I’ve never done cocaine, I imagine Ghost in the Fire as the audio soundtrack to either a bad trip or DT’s. By the same token I imagine that listening to Ghost in the Fire while on cocaine or meth would lead to some terribly disturbing hallucinations such as thinking your can melt peoples faces using your eyes or that you are being raped by dragons.

At a very base level, Drug Honkey is a doom/sludge band that can be traced to the likes of Eyehategod, Cough and such with droning, feedback drenched guitars. But there’s also a lot of other, disturbing elements at play. I hear some caustic, industrialized tones in some of the background programming and noises that recall Skin Chamber, Godflesh or Scorn (cemented by a cover of Scorn‘s “Twitcher”). There’s also an icky ambient pallor over the whole affair that has a Gnaw Their Tongues vibe by way of the cacophony of noises and sounds, that only rarely come together to form anything musical. The entire affair isn’t about riffs or moments, but about leaving you in a nerve wracked, piss covered, shuddering state of paranoia.

I could barely make it through the first three tracks “Order of the Solar Temple”, “Ghost in the Fire” and ” Weight of the World” without taking my headphones off and checking there weren’t ticks attached to my tongue. And it’s not just the dense, crawling, itchy riffs and racket of grating, discordant and jarring, industrial FX, the vocals are the main reason for the music’s dilapidated atmosphere. Paul “Honkey Head” Gillis’ uses a variety of truly disturbing growls, groans, screams and chants, many often modulated and enhanced to further the mind fuckery (just listen to “Out of My Mind” and closing track “Saturate /Annihilate”) . And this isn’t an album of 3-4 rangy, drawn out songs. This is ten shorter, sharp mainline injections that get right into your blood stream.

If the CIA really wanted to punish captured insurgents or terrorists, they should play this instead of white noise. There are so many layers of nightmarish, chaotic noise mixed with calculated nauseating moments of psychosis, that it is at times a very difficult listen. But by the same token, Ghost in the Fire, like drugs, has an addictive, hypnotic crawl in its later stages  (i.e “This Time I Won’t Hesitate”, “In Black Robe”, “Dead Days (Heroin III)”)  that it burrows into your mind, demanding you listen. It’s sonic heroin basically. You know it’s bad for you, but you want just one more hit.

Listen to Ghost in the Fire at your own risk. Don’t blame me if you find yourself with trichotillomania and acute periodontitis, blowing dudes in back alleys for $10 to get your next fix.

Fitting snugly alongside the likes of Grave, Hooded Menace, Runemagick, Autopsy, Coffins, Funerus and such; loping mid-paced lurches meld with a few sloppy blasts filled with sickly cavernous growls. It’s all very organic, primitive and natural sounding with nary a triggered blast beat or arpeggio in sight and those wanting a break from the clinical precision of Decrepit Birth and their ilk might do well to check this out.

That being said, the almost Neanderthal approach to death metal is archaic, and beyond the enjoyable, nostalgic simplicity, there’s not that much to remember or come back to once the record is over. The initial retro buzz, burp n fuzz of “Burn Your Dead”, “Cannibal Abattoir” and the more feral ”Born in a Grave” has its moments of knuckle dragging glee but still, even the ever so catchy,  groovy and almost stoner main riff of ten minute closing instrumental “Death Metal Suicide” wears out its welcome about five minutes in.  Also the bands insistence of trying to inject blast beats here and there just aren’t very convincing. Instead, The Dead are far more convincing when delivering a pure unabashed, sludged out dirge like “Blood Angel”.

Still, those wanting a purely throwback album of sweaty, burly simplicity could do worse this than this and it at least come across as a bit more honest than the current wave of Incantation clones.

Experimentally wandering well past the wrong side of the universe’s tracks, Death Dub is psychedelic in a way that the flower children could never imagine…and from which they would never recover even if they could. The Chicago quartet drenches its twisted crawls through the killing fields with lots of buzz, loads of crack (interpret as appropriate), and whirring, spiral madness to not only make for an experience akin to catching a delirium tremens wave, but one that is quite engaging, even hypnotic. The distorted vocals – along with everything else drip with venom and hatefulness– and the crush is a mighty one. The big upside is that none of it is boring, maybe even for those folks that might not otherwise be enamored with the musical trips of the doomed and the damned. In the way of pleasant surprises, you are treated to a fitting cover of Pigface’s “Burundi (Reconstruct), as well as a live rendition of “China Black (Pt. 2)” that proves just how well this stuff translates to the stage. Even Paul “Honkey Head” Gillis’ (vocals/ synths/samples) song introduction is creepy as hell and leaves you feeling dirty and a little ashamed for reasons that cannot be explained with the written word. Chilling stuff, I’m telling you.

Chemically-enhanced, heavily demented, and in all likelihood a little too appealing to the crackhead sociopath next door (it’s difficult to explain), Death Dub weighs a ton and will leave you with a case of the dry-heaves to go with those miserable cold-sweats. That is, if you “get” it. And why wouldn’t anyone want to live see/hear life through the eyes/ears of a Drug Honkey? It’s the experience that counts, right? Provided you survive it.