Boduf Songs ambient, experimental record Stench of Exist (The Flenser) takes you through an emotional roller coaster of inverted rock sounds. At times with elements of metal, at times with elements of folk rock, at times even dollops of synthesizers, at times entire tracks are filled with static noise or the sound of rain falling.
The more traditional acoustic songs feature slow piano melodies and broken whispers for singing like in “My Continuing Battle with Material Reality”. The raw instrumentals and vocals are occasionally interrupted by synthesized beats, blurring the genre line. The same is true of “Great Anthem of My Youth” a song with warped piano melodies layered by a synth loop. The soft moaning chorus in “Grows in the Small World of a Nerve” sounds like standing outside a church on a rainy Sunday.
There are moments on the record when it seems the group is making a commentary on the sound of silence or what the definition of music is. Noises akin to waves of air or air conditioning fill space on “The Witch’s Cradle” until the one minute mark and “Head of Hollow-Fill and Mountaintop Removal” has tracks of voices talking with a distorted effect. The last track, “Sky Pedal’s Plan”, moves subtly through indistinguishable soft noises and silence.
This experimenting with the quiet and the incoherent makes for an almost creepy record. I felt my hair stand up when the striking vocals started in “The Rotted Names”; it sounded like the haunting soundtrack for a horror movie.
Although this record may feel disjointed at times, alternating between distorted acoustic music and ambient noise, it is evident the artist laid down these tracks thoughtfully. Rather than making something that is easy on the ears, this record really plays with the generally accepted tenets of rock music.