This unknown quantity one man band generously arrived in CD form at Ave Noctum towers. Neil Carter is the man behind it and according to the blurb it it’s a depressive musical journey into humanity’s descent into a horrifying post-apocalyptic world (or March 30 as we call it in the UK).

Not sure how to handle this if I’m honest. It opens with an acoustic sylvan sounding guitar which then strips a gear as an out of tune harmonica tumbles in. This is buried under a black metal riff before twisting and morphing through a turbulent, sometimes jerky melange of keyboards, organ, trip-hop rhythms, spoken word samples and lead breaks. And again if I’m honest that is pretty much how it continues for eleven tracks.

Now me, I sometimes feel like the loony on the bus here at Ave Noctum. I’m genuinely happy to collect the weirdshit and the bizarre. From The Axis Of Perdition’s Urfe through Junkpile Jimmy and anything David Tibet related to number radio stations set to music. so this is not outside my area of interest.

What I do find difficult here is…well what is intended. I’ll explain. I guess in the greater part this is looking towards things Arcturus, circa La Masquerade Infernale. However there are no clean vocals, and little in the way of songs. No not in a bad way, just that this is much more eleven passages in a whole. A piece broken down rather than a collection woven together.

Years ago I sat down with a couple of friends to watch Rob Zombie’s House Of 1000 Corpses. At the end one remarked “The biggest problem that film had was it had too many ideas..” I think that is where I am with this. Let’s be honest having too many ideas is a great place to start for any kind of artist, and in time focus will come to help hone, pick and choose and direct those ideas. That’s where I’m at with this. Ideas tumble, fall, clash and collide all over the place but rarely come into focus for long. As such there is no real coherent atmosphere or direction of travel for me to hang onto.

This is a good place to start though, make no mistake. Mr Carter is clearly an adept multi-instrumentalist with genuine talent and desire to create. I just think at the moment he need to take a deep breath and focus a little more. It will undoubtedly come.

At the moment though for me this is an interesting work in progress and I do hope he perseveres.

(5/10 Gizmo)

https://www.facebook.com/1013neilcarter

https://1013.bandcamp.com/album/result-of-an-iron-age