ALUK TODOLO AND DER BLUTHARSCH AND THE INFINITE CHURCH OF THE LEADING HAND: A COLLABORATION

As you probably figured out from the title, this is indeed a COLLABORATION album shared between the French psychedelic and experimental Krautrock band ALUK TODOLO and the newer incarnation of the Austrian industrial psychedelic neofolk band DER BLUTHARSCH that on this album makes their debut as DER BLUTHARSCH AND THE INFINITE CHURCH OF THE LEADING HAND. The result of this marriage of talents is an album that displays both bands' characteristic sounds on full display as one hypnotic lengthy track bleeds into the next.

A COLLABORATION features four tracks that are all close to the ten minute mark with each one having somewhat of its own personality. The first two tracks sound rather similar as plodding bass and drum mesmerize as they drift on into infinity while strange lysergic organs dot the ambient soundscapes and noisy guitars jangle into one distorted frenzy after another. The first two tracks are also fairly non-musical and very much utilize the no wave meets Krautrock technique of ALUK TODOLO's first two releases also they don't seem as dark and soul piercing. 
The third track takes on a different flavor as it has more of a techno groove while spoken muffled words come and go while a guitar actually musters up some musical mojo and creates a lingering solo of sorts. Track four has a much more industrial sound as a regular uptempo beat ushers in Bauhaus type guitar riffs and a rather "jingle bells" type of percussion along with the electronic beats. This track sounds the most "normal" of the four and wouldn't sound out of place on a Skinny Puppy album minus the vocals as the final two tracks actually provide melodic developments which is virtually absent on ALUK TODOLO releases.

While i'm not familiar with BLUTHARSCH, i have to say that for an ALUK TODOLO album, it seems that the collaborative effort has watered down their freak factor a few notches as the tracks have lost a bit of their edge after the extreme tripped out darkness that preceded. The atmospheric ambience is just as hypnotically blissed out but something has been somewhat sanitized in this mixture of ideas. Be that as it may, this is still a compelling journey through the bizarre reaches of the sonic universe. Cool album but falls short of the cream of the crop.