SCARD’s latest release, Lysergic Desecration is a techno-drum made of human skin. It is samples turned septic, a digital scream in the dark burying grounds. This release feels both retro and modern, with undeniable dread spanning between. Huston has utilized a custom, sampled drum kit using bones, knives, and other organic sources to ground this experimental, noisy album, which without could make the listener feel as if the automated house of horrors was running itself.
This is Hell gets the horror show started with a brooding, slithering assault, reminiscent at times of Skinny Puppy, even down to the abrasion of what sounds like power-tool abuse. The third song, Your Home is Burning, has an exotic and uneasy feel that is very effective. Surging into a wall of chaos, Fire in the Veins features a remixing of some earlier works from the Rusted Lock album. This track is more stripped down, so it recalibrates the ears for the ensuing madness on the album’s back half.
These six well-contained and episodic cuts could be a new cyber soundtrack for The Warriors film, or each song a chapter for an 80’s pulp horror paperback.
SCARD has entered new territory by employing themes of “nostalgia, youth mischief, and hallucinogenic experimentation.” In this cemetery of sound, no sooner has one musical apparition approached the listener, before another appears. All trips on this journey will chill the blood.
-Dave Fogg