Versions Grain

Crumbling, distorted, and otherwise enjoyably ugly, Cloaks' Versus Grain is the kind of release that makes perfect sense after the Bug and other fellow travelers in Kevin Martin's wake all trudge echo, draggy, doom cut-ups and breakdowns and a general sense that a huge mechanism is busy crushing what's left of the earth. For all that the duo has had dubstep associations, this sounds like little in said putative scene -- in place of nervous, shoulders-hunching wariness, Cloaks start by clobbering a listener and then getting even more threatening. A song like "#00197," all low tones and growling hums and massive beats, aims for a strange kind of catharsis -- it's not quite early Swans but it's driving in the neighborhood. Even those moments of relative quiet, like the start of "Against," are full of the sound of collapsing circuitry and an array of metallic construction busily tearing itself apart to a beat. Meanwhile, "Rust on Metal" sounds like a description of the process come to life, if highly sped up and directed by a throbbing sentient consciousness. If nothing else, Versus Grain proves uglier than the near contemporaneous movie Terminator Salvation, and a lot scarier to boot. ~ Ned Raggett|