Turn up the pressure of the shower faucet and rinse the gunge from your tumble dryer filter. Now, imagine a musical soundtrack to this mind-numbing but necessary task. Florida industrial noise duo, Operation Suffocate, decided to take on this unenviable challenge for their debut EP. It’s called Feudal Age, but it might be better renamed as Futile Age.
Calling it experimental might be a disservice to this record. Extreme noise is more accurate, and this is something Operation Suffocate are proud to call their signature. The levels of distortion are loud enough to make the drumbeats sound like wavering static in opener, ‘No Life’. A death metal scream ravages in the background like a taser gun that’s past its warranty. Maybe the aim is to create something that resembles the music of Whitehouse recorded inside the dense chamber of an empty water tower. Somehow, it retains a hold over you the way a patch of fog draws you towards it against your better judgement. Recreate this song in stereo sound and it might sound like The Body remixing a Neurosis demo. Here, a high-register synth tries to break through the thick wall of fuzz, but there’s more chance of removing ancient water scales from a bathroom mirror using a dry cloth. It’s true that you can hear a regular beat, but the deliberate obfuscation of traditional snare tunings (and frequencies) leaves you with a tilted head.
This opening atrocity sets the mood for the rest of the EP. Vocalist, Clint Listing, could be groaning about anything, but he does a good job of pretending to have a stomach ulcer in ‘Obsolete’. Operation Suffocate appear to want two things – ambient atmospherics and industrial dynamics. The result is a channelling of noise that sounds like the band in the rehearsal room next door when you put your ear to the padded walls. Being held captive in a Medieval dungeon would be easier to survive. At least you can hear the thud of the snare beats among the humming flame-thrower distortion of ‘Those Eyes’. This is not lo-fi – this is goodbye to everything that could offer a blanket of comfort to the destitute. Maybe the warped sound of being 12,000 feet in the air feels like this when you’re about to leap out of an aircraft for your maiden sky dive.
Nobody can accuse Operation Suffocate of a hollow bottom-end production. Their problem is at the other end of the sound range. Every beat in ‘Fathers We March’ resembles a scalding of human flesh. Clint Listing appears to be contemplating a ritual suicide involving a gruesome opening of the intestines. Atari Teenage Riot might produce something like this if they returned as an industrial doom artist like Author & Punisher.
The prison-hired synths of Burzum’s Varg Vikernes circa 1995 have more clarity than closing track, ‘The Last Fight’, but that’s by design. Operation Suffocate want to break you, and there’s a good chance they’d succeed if they extended this EP any further. Beads of sweat will drip from your forehead at the end. One assumes the Floridian duo will be honoured to receive the award for most nausea-inducing record of 2025. You’ll struggle to find anything as baffling and as antagonistic all year.
JVB
Verdict
Release Date: 18/04/2025
Record Label: The Doorway To
Standout tracks: No Life; Fathers We March
Suggested Further Listening: Lament Cityscape – The Old Wet EP (2020), Sulphur Nurse – Roopkund (2022), Catafalque – Dybbuk (2023)