Finland's Fleshpress may take their name from a Grief song, but it's clear from the opening moments of 'Washer', the first track of their 8th release Tearing Skyholes, that this is a mere vestigial influence by this point. During the opening minutes of this track they're more akin to mid-to-late period Earth, replete with bright, clean tones and glacial pace, but things soon take a turn for the harsher with an abrasive noise-rock rhythm and the addition of vocalist Marko's repellant bark.
The interlude of 'Silmien Rei'ittämä Taivas' transitions the opener into the album's sprawling centrepiece 'Coming Of Gaze'. Here they manage to fuse those shimmering Carlson-esque guitars with a colder, more foreboding atmosphere courtesy of bassist Tuomas' creeping, crawling tones, creating a track positively bristling with malevolence. The whole band sounds completely locked into the basic rhythm, but the guitars of Marko and Samuli manage to veer off and explore a variety of semi-improvisational passages, before culminating in a powerful climax.
The swaying rhythm, slightly off-kilter tones and raw howl of the vocals on 'Floating Paranoia' sounds like some bastard hybrid of Dystopia and The Jesus Lizard. They ratchet up the tension with a series of tightly-wound riffs, escalating to the point where something must break, to the point where any other band would offer relief, but not Fleshpress; they seem to thrive on discomfort and dissonance.
When I said earlier that there was barely a trace of the band that inspired their name on this album, the one exception is the truly bleak 'Golden Owl'. Almost 6 minutes of purest nihilistic sludge, it sticks out like a gangrenous thumb among the rest of the album, but still retains the same uncomfortable atmosphere.
The absolutely monumental closing track 'Each Eye Holes The Sky' begins with layers of corrosive guitar and pounding drums, increasingly building the tension of the track to the point where it becomes almost unbearable, the layers of guitar interweaving and overlapping before the track finally coalesces into a recognisable rhythm. Revolting, orc-like grunted vocals babble maliciously just beneath the surface, while the band seemingly abandon the momentum they spent so long building in favour of short guitar breaks with an almost western vibe.
This is another perfect example of what Fleshpress do so well on Tearing Skyholes; they establish a solid rhythmic base which they then use to veer off on wild exploratory tangents, without ever becoming convoluted or boring. Yes, there's a fair bit of fretboard fuckery, but never at the expense of interesting riffs. The track deteriorates further with each repetition until the riff is so distended and warped that it's barely recognisable from the track's beginnings, before dissipating into corrosive feedback, the equivalent of the slow death of rusting machinery.
