Bastard Noise / Xiphoid Dementia – Human Extinction Engine (Vinyl Album – Phage Tapes / Terror / Existence Establishment / Scry Recordings)
Genre/Influences: Noise, industrial.
Background/Info: This work is a split album between long-time active noise-maker Bastard Noise and Xiphoid Dementia. The album has been released as a collaboration between different labels.
Content: Xiphoid Dementia takes off with 3 harsh industrial-noise pieces. The tracks have been achieved with a few spoken samplings and bombastic/epic arrangements. Bastard Noise takes the B-side delivering 4 harsh pieces mixing industrial, noise and pure improvisation. Both last cuts are supported with a dark, tormented sphere.
+ + + : You’ve to be into ‘noise’ to enjoy this split album, but it’s a rather accessible format because of the diversified influences that have been mixed together. I especially like Xiphoid Dementia’s “Spirals”, which has something more ambient-driven. My favorite Bastard Noise cut is “Cries From Pterosaur Graveyard, which appears to be a great and somewhat improvised-like track. I also have to say a word about the great artwork of this vinyl; a picture disc says that much more than digital releases!
– – – : It remains an album for a very specific and experienced audience!
Conclusion: Dark and tormented, harsh and noise-like! This album is the meeting between inspired noise-makers.
Best songs: “Spirals”, “Malevolence” (Xiphoid Dementia), Cries From The Pterosaur” (Bastard Noise).
Rate: (7).
Artists: www.facebook.com/xdementia / www.bastardnoiseskullvault.com
Labels: www.phagetapes.miiduu.com / www.facebook.com/phagetapes / www.terror.lt / www.facebook.com/Terrorlt-763566073672341 / www.existest.org / www.scryrecordings.com / www.facebook.com/scryrecordings
About Bastard Noise & Xiphoid Dementia
Bastard Noise began in June 1991 as a side project and alter ego of the California powerviolence group Man Is The Bastard, continuing under its own name once that band ended. Eric Wood and W.T. Nelson have remained its core members through the project’s shifts between heavy rock, power electronics and pure noise. Xiphoid Dementia is the solo vehicle of American artist Egan Budd, who founded the project in 1999 and built it into a fixture of the industrial and power-electronics underground. In a 2025 Side-Line interview, Budd said he is driven simply by “getting time alone to write music and make something.” “Human Extinction Engine” paired the two acts on a split vinyl LP released across several specialist noise labels.
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I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.
