Colossloth – Heathen Needles (CD Album – Cold Spring)

Genre/Influences: Experimental, industrial, cinematographic.
Background/Info: After a few albums released on CDR and vinyl, this is the second official CD released by Leicester (UK) based solo-project Colossloth.
Content: Colossloth experimented with a wide arsenal of influences, moving from heavy industrial outburst towards dark, dreamy cinematographic passages. It can be now a bit relaxing and next abstract and into experimentalism to finally reach a heavy industrial/noise style. “Heathen Needles” is an album bringing extremes together.
+ + + : There’s a huge diversity of influences running through this work, but the artist seems to feel comfortable with most of these influences. I enjoy the somewhat psychedelic-noise driven title track, but still the more ambient and abstract-like “We Had A Pact” and the more industrial orientated “Forcing The Error”. I also noticed a kind alchemy in the sound treatments like an artist who’s decomposing and reconstructing sounds. So in the end it’s an album that might please numerous freaks of extreme music genres.
– – – : I don’t have any problem with the diversity of the work, but I can imagine some listeners will miss coherence. There’s a huge contrast between some of the influences, but we all have to admit it can be still seen as a rather positive aspect.
Conclusion: “Heathen Needles” makes me think to a compilation revealing the wider sound canvas Colossloth is driven by.
Best songs: “Heathen Needles”, “We Had A Pact”, “A Place Where Your Dreams Can Die Alone”.
Rate: (7).
Artist: www.facebook.com/colossloth
Label: www.coldspring.co.uk / www.facebook.com/coldspringhq
About Colossloth
Colossloth is the solo project of Wooly Woolaston, from Leicester, UK, working as a one-man experimental electronic act built around samplers and loop stations rather than conventional instruments. Woolaston released his first Colossloth album through the Belgian label Doom Structure in 2008, followed by releases on Doom Mantra Records in 2009 and Dark Meadow Recordings in 2011, before signing to Cold Spring, where “Outstretch Your Hand For The Impress Of Truth” became his first official CD on the label in 2016. “Heathen Needles” followed as his second official Cold Spring CD.
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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.

