I will never forget the first time I heard Gnaw Their Tongues.  Being around a lot of extreme music desensitizes one to the more psychologically disturbing aspects of the scene like gory lyrics, grotesque album art and shocking sonic choices.  But even looking at the cover of All the Dread Magnificence of Perversity clued me in that this was going to be something…unique.  And it was.  It takes its place in a very small circle of albums I had to turn off because I just couldn’t take what was coming out of my speakers.  It was sublime, for sure, but way too intense for what I could handle.  With careful training, I’ve been able to build my tolerance back up, and now I stare intently at The Cessation of Suffering, the 10th release from the project.

Gnaw Their Tongues is, was and always will be one of the many projects helmed by the multi-instrumentalist known as Mories, aka Maurice de Jong.  While he writes and records under a wide swath of different projects and monikers, Gnaw Their Tongues is arguably the project he is most known for, and with good reason.  For almost twenty years now, de Jong has been pumping out a steady stream of misanthropic, horrifying and borderline unlistenable (note: I’m using this adjective complimentarily) blend of black metal, harsh noise and electronic music.  The Cessation of Suffering is the band’s 10th full length, as stated, but there is so much more to their discography via all the EPs and short releases put out over the years.  In all that time, most of the traces of black metal have been phased out in favor of harsh noise and ambient electronics, and indeed, on Cessation, de Jong has effectively removed anything even remotely resembling “music.”  Cessation is meant to be a progression of the experimental noise that has been a more prominent part of the project’s sound, but also it is meant to be the bleakest album ever put out by de Jong.  And in that respect, he has accomplished exactly what he set out to do.

To quote the lead character from my favorite movie of all time: “Oh, you want *dark and ominous*?”  Well, that is what you get.  There is almost nothing here that constitutes “music” in the traditional sense, or even any sense, really.  Harsh, ear-piercing static, metallic grinding and scraping, blown out percussion and shrieked, incomprehensible vocals blend together into a desolate wasteland of truly grotesque proportions.  This, like all Gnaw Their Tongues albums, is not for the faint of heart.  This is music that begs you to turn it off, to run away and to pass it off.  That is a feature, not a bug.  “Dreamless” kicks Cessation off in what could almost be described as pleasant, but the introduction of grating static over the droning chants ruin an otherwise good time almost instantly.  There is probably a lot to be said about the artistry of dichotomizing the human voice with inhuman noise, and it cannot be understated that every part and piece of the soundscape de Jong paints is intentional.  However, if you’re not here specifically to look for that, then you’re going to be almost immediately turned off by the oppressive, vile and masochistic musical landscape you’re presented with.  What brief moments of respite there are are few and far in between, but they are there to do a ton of work breaking up the, you know, rest of it.  Soft piano becomes the backbone of “Salvation Body,” choirs drone on “Dreamless,” and even the creepy spoken word sample at the end of “The Departure of Light” help break up the overwhelming amount of noise.  Hell, there’s even a little bit of black metal, courtesy of “Met Huid En Haar,” as a treat.  Call it unlistenable, sure, but don’t call it uninspired.

I think at this point I need to clarify that I do very much like The Cessation of Suffering.  It does what it does very well, and all the real and intentional choices made on it lead to a profound listening experience, for lack of a better way of putting it.  As long as you know what to expect, that is.  I wouldn’t say this is the place to start with Gnaw Their Tongues, but…is there really a *good* place to start with them?

— Ian

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The Cessation of Suffering is available now on Consouling Sounds Records.  For more information on Gnaw Their Tongues, visit their Facebook page.