Nightmare Park hail from Connecticut and describe themselves as “Blackened Harsh Static and Noise Walls, sounds sourced from Horror films that I like. . . . HELL IS REAL.” The Bandcamp page also has a lot of albums based on various horror films like "The Shining," "Pet Semetary," "Psycho," "Candyman," and many others. With little to go on, let's dive in and see what Barbara is in for.

This album consists of one 20 minute track titled "They're Coming To Get You, Barbara." I don't know who Barbara is, but she had better watch out. To put this succinctly, this is extremely crunchy noise. It is pulsing and completely overdriven. There are some subtle changes in the sound and you begin to hear patterns in the way that you can start to see patterns when watching television static. If you like harsh noise wall with an emphasis on "harsh," this will be right up your alley. This album weighs in at 20 minutes and is limited to 42 copies.

For those of you unfamiliar with this artist, Fail is the work of Dan Fox, the man behind Inner Demons Records and the hardest workin’ man in noise music. His pedigree is well known, so let’s dive in and see what he have this time.

"160227B" kicks off with what sounds like heavily distorted vocoder and high-pitched feedback noise. Rumbling noise comes in to join the feedback to provide some balance. This then shifts gears into a rumbling ride with a synth pulse that rings out like a bass-driven heartbeat as heavily distorted voices run over the top of it all. But don't even try to figure out what they are saying because it is a fool's errand. There is a lot going on here, and I love the kitchen sink approach to noise, so this works well. But it is not chaotic. Rather, it comes across as intentionally constructed.

"160904" is a 20 minute drone-driven work that kicks off with the sounds of air raid sirens before shifting gears into heavy, stuttering drone, which smooths out into some bass drone with incidental noises thrown in and sweeping flanger. This then shifts to grinding noise over pulsing drone. Compared to the previous track, this is downright peaceful. If you like your drone with a little grit to it, this is well worth checking out.

Overall, this shows the versatility of Fail. It is not just harsh noise and it is definitely not total chaos. This is carefully constructed noise that has a goal beyond simply blowing the listener away. Well done. This album weighs in at around 33 minutes.

Fail is the work of Dan Fox, the man behind Inner Demons Records. He records under several names, most notably Fail, Loss, This Is What I Hear When You Talk, and others. Now let’s talk about the title. I love the idea of a metal detector detector, so let's comb the sand dunes and see what we find beneath the surface.
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We kick it off with "I want to streak a nude beach by running around wearing a burqa," which is a 21 minute spacey trip. It totally sounds like there are times where Fox sampled the Star Trek transporter sound. This then shifts into a bass-heavy segment with an actual beat. Yes, a real one. You might even dance to it if you dance slow enough. Or if you are weighed down with a lot of cloth. Hypothetically speaking. Towards the end, it becomes a bit more punishing, with a lot of drone, noise, and pounding beats. There may be some distorted voice in there, but who can tell? And can we take a minute to appreciate the absurdity of the title? In a world that seems to be going straight to hell on all fronts, sometimes the only thing we can do is laugh. As Kurt Vonnegut remarked, "Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward." So it goes.

"Pink Freud" closes it off with another delightful title and a nice piece of almost peaceful drone. That “almost” is an important caveat, as the first third is smooth and calm, where it suddenly becomes dissonant and piercing. This then becomes a bit more distorted, but more soothing, like listening to a jet engine fly away into the distance.

Overall, another solid release from Fail, and a reminder that sometimes you just have to see the humor in the world. If you like it noisy, but not harsh noise wall, this is well worth checking out. This release is available exclusively to subscribers and weighs in at around 27 minutes.

Fail is the work of Dan Fox, the man behind Inner Demons Records. He records under several names, most notably Fail, Loss, This Is What I Hear When You Talk, and others. This time around, we have the evocatively titled release " When you’re a nail, everything starts to look like a hammer," so let's give this a listen and see what Fox is going to hit us with this time around.

We kick things off with "Self-nemesis," which falls solidly under what James Keeler of Wilt refers to as "dark noise." This is noisy, but with a heavy amount of atmosphere. The closest comparison I can come up with is a noisier version of Inade. This is the sound of Armageddon; not the end, but the middle of the conflict. This is heavy and beautiful. Incredibly well done. "I'm hoping that in the future my world view will be far less accurate" closes it out with a long track at almost 19 minutes that gives Fox the ability to really delve into the soundscape. If the previous track was Armageddon, this is the smoldering aftermath. Planes overhead still survey the damage to see who will claim sovereignty over the ruined blackened soil below. Fires burn and autonomous machines still roam through the rubble, despite there being no one left to control them. There is a lot going on in this track as it continually shifts course, and it gets a bit noisier as it progresses, but it is all pretty bleak. That is to say that I enjoyed it immensely, although I share Fox's titular sentiments.

If you have heard some of the harsher Fail releases, this may not be what you were expecting, but like a gracious host, Fox always gives us exactly what we need. You could almost think of this as a mix between Loss and Fail, not really in approach, but in the kind of emotions evoked, This is very well done and well worth picking up. This album weighs in at around 25 minutes.

Some musicians treat rhythm like a polite suggestion. Others treat it like a hammer. On "Ritual", Pawe Kmiecik, operating under the long-standing moniker WIELORYB, clearly belongs to the second category. This is music that does not stroll into the room. It kicks the door open, drags in a stack of steel drums, and starts assembling a factory.

Originally released digitally in 2021 and now resurrected on CD by Zoharum with additional tracks and fresh artwork, "Ritual" stretches across more than seventy-eight minutes of dense rhythmic machinery. Fifteen tracks, most of them built around relentless industrial pulses, form something that feels less like a conventional album and more like a prolonged mechanical ceremony.

WIELORYB’s history runs deeper than casual listeners might assume. Founded in the mid-1990s, the project emerged during the formative years of Poland’s industrial and EBM underground, alongside acts like Agressiva 69. Back then the project functioned as a duo and occasionally a trio, navigating the raw electronic aesthetics that defined that era. Since 2010, however, the project has essentially become Kmiecik’s personal laboratory, a place where industrial structures slowly mutated into something closer to rhythmic noise: harsher, more physical, and considerably less concerned with traditional song forms.

"Ritual" embodies that evolution rather clearly. The opening track “Methods” wastes no time establishing the album’s grammar: pounding mechanical beats, layered textures that grind against one another like rusted gears, and an atmosphere thick enough to require ventilation. The sound design feels claustrophobic in a strangely deliberate way, as if the listener has been locked inside the basement of a particularly determined drum machine.

Yet beneath that oppressive density lies careful construction. Kmiecik’s approach to rhythm is surprisingly architectural. Patterns stack, fracture, and reform; percussion elements emerge briefly before dissolving back into the larger machine. “Many” and “Korangar” expand the palette with shifting layers of metallic percussion and subtle industrial drones, creating the sensation of wandering through a labyrinth of interconnected engines.

The title track “Ritual” itself appears almost like a compressed manifesto. Shorter than many of the surrounding pieces, it distills the project’s aesthetic into a concentrated burst of tribal-mechanical energy. The rhythm is hypnotic, almost ceremonial, as if ancient drum patterns had been translated into the language of malfunctioning circuitry.

That strange balance between archaic and mechanical impulses appears repeatedly throughout the record. “Tribal Order” and “Sacrifice” lean heavily into the idea of rhythm as communal invocation, although here the tribe in question might just be a gathering of malfunctioning robots chanting in a warehouse at three in the morning. The mood is dark but never static. Kmiecik frequently shifts the density of the arrangement, allowing brief moments of space before the percussion inevitably surges back.

Some tracks reveal unexpected nuance within the noise. “Las” introduces a slightly more atmospheric dimension, its textures suggesting distant environmental echoes rather than pure mechanical aggression. “Meadow”, intriguingly titled for such a harsh sonic environment, momentarily softens the album’s relentless momentum, as if someone briefly opened a door and allowed a gust of fresh air into the factory.
Still, subtlety is not the record’s primary mission. The sheer endurance test of listening through seventy-plus minutes of rhythmic noise is part of the experience. Albums like this operate less as background listening and more as immersive environments. One does not casually sip tea while "Ritual" plays. The music demands attention, physical engagement, perhaps even a mild tolerance for sonic blunt force.

The bonus tracks included in this new edition extend that atmosphere further rather than altering it. “Dragstore”, “Echoes in the Night”, and “Fly” function as additional corridors in the same industrial complex, each reinforcing the sense that the album’s universe is vast, echoing, and faintly menacing.

In a cultural landscape currently saturated with polite ambient drones and tasteful electronic minimalism, "Ritual" feels refreshingly stubborn. It refuses to be elegant. It refuses to be soothing. Instead it builds a massive rhythmic structure and invites the listener to stand inside it while the walls vibrate.

Not everyone will enjoy that experience. Some listeners prefer their music to behave nicely. "Ritual" does not. It marches, pounds, and reverberates like an underground ceremony conducted by machines that have developed their own theology.

And honestly, considering the current state of the world, a few industrial drums beating in the dark might be the most honest soundtrack available.