Section 37 Critical Mass Vol 2 Play: Lo-Fi   Mid-Fi   Hi-Fi   Download: Lo-Fi   Mid-Fi   Hi-Fi (Excerpt from track 'Burnt Offerings')

OK, some explanation first. 'Critical Mass Vol 1' featured Stuart Harris and Jim Kirkwood. The poetry / futuristic hymns of Stuart forming part of an overall package with Jim's dark musical interpretations. The music provided an excellent dark cushion for the vocals. This time Jim takes much more of a back seat, in fact only appearing on two tracks. His place is taken by Cevin Moore who conjures up, if anything, an even darker sonic hell than Jim - but the style is very different.

A deep flute plays a suitably mournful melody for 'A Prayer for a sick Child'. We then get the actual 'prayer' after which the flute strikes up again and a somewhat aboriginal rhythm gets in full flow. The flute/ rhythm combination works well and gets into quite a groove. A rather good vocal sample gets 'The Shutting of the barn Door' underway then enters some very dark and up front synth playing. Another apocalyptic poem (probably the best on the album) takes over. This is wonderfully dark- somewhat manic. 'Fallout' begins with haunting pads, distant explosions and sounds from the depths of hell. Then we get words about pain and blood growled from the speakers. Deep string sounds accompany the demonic cacophony. 'Burnt Offerings' gets straight into rather heavy, slightly ethnic sounding rhythmic territory and a rather distorted vocal loop. This is a typical example of the non Kirkwood approach. A groove is certainly created but the sounds chosen and the mixing is very different. Non English text is spoken in a rather matter of fact sort of way. A deep and powerful slow melody plays underneath the vocal giving the whole thing an even more menacing edge. At the half way mark (4 mins) we descend into twitterings but then the rhythm comes back with double the power of before like the devil himself holding the drum sticks forcing his subjects to even greater torment. 'Psalm 23' uses a deep bass line over repeated 'melodic' pads then another of Stuart's atomic 'prayers' based on the Lord's prayer but given a full nuclear treatment. In complete contrast there is even a dance rhythm over the top including distorted stutterings- bizarre to say the least. 'Delirium' is the first of the Kirkwood tracks beginning with whispered vocals then a sequence starts up accompanied by more manic drumming and the wailing of the damned. The pace quickens as we hurtle forward amongst a host of distorted samples. Every lead line and other effects are so OTT.