AUTHOR AND PUNISHER Melk En Honing CD (2015)

Tristan Shone builds his own instruments. That sentence alone should tell you everything about where this record is going.

Author and Punisher is a one-man industrial doom project out of San Diego, and Melk En Honing is the album that cemented Shone's reputation as one of the most genuinely frightening people working in heavy music. The machinery he constructs, massive pneumatic rigs and drone machines that he plays live on stage, produces a sound that sits somewhere between a factory floor and a funeral procession. This record in particular leans into a kind of punishing, hypnotic repetition that will wreck you if you let it. The title is Dutch for milk and honey, which is either deeply ironic or deeply unsettling depending on your mood. Both, probably.

CD, 2015 pressing on Profound Lore Records.

Fans of: Godflesh, Sunn O))), Swans.