REVIEW: Full Of Hell and Andrew Nolan - Scraping The Divine

Full Of Hell are known for the fear-inducing sound of their grinding, abrasive music. Andrew Nolan is known for his crushing industrial signature. Together, they have created the album 'Scraping The Divine' in what can only be described as a massive display of heretical sound production.

With a variety of styles displayed prominently at varying points across the LP, both artists have got plenty of fingerprints on the project and even in their least influential moments, still display notable creative direction throughout. The LP acts less like a collection of songs, and more like one undulating piece of eerily unsettling noise with some nice dividing lines to better organise the screeches, howls, and shrieks that pierce the incessant, driving machinations of the audio below.

The first few songs allow the music to unfold and evolve, with opener 'Gradual Timeslip' flowing into 'Heat Death From the Pyre' and lead single 'Burdened by Solar Mass', introducing the music of the album with three aggression-fuelled explosions of energy and volume. With blast beats, violent noise, machinery and ragged guitars, it's a pretty violent way to kick the album off.

The group slow things down somewhat on second and last single 'Sphere of Saturn', as well as fifth track 'Hemlock Gnosis' and sixth track 'Blessed Anathema'. Bringing in a little of the hiphop influence from Andrew Nolan, there's a notable synth undercurrent that builds a heavier, choking atmosphere within the tumultuous fog of noise that pervades the record. Getting over halfway with track seven 'Facing the Divide', we slip a little back to the abrasion of the first few songs but still staying with this more industrial tempo and hiphop influence, each meeting a nice halfway point before continuing.

Track eight 'Approaching the Monolith' shows of Full Of Hell's musical forte most keenly of all the songs here, with a 1:29 run length and a devastatingly heavy grindcore sound, with just a hint of Nolan's synths and production. Afterwards comes 'Extinguished Glow', that lets the atmosphere of unease really take over once more and 'Common Miracles' does nothing to deter its juggernaut of discomfort.

The penultimate song on the album, 'Irradiated Sands', lets the groups collective urge for droning noise to come to the fore, and relatively allows for a calm before the storm of final song 'Paralytic Lineage'. The track stays with the sense of unease that had been previously fostered, before slowly working up for a crescendo finish to the LP that also flows right back in where we started, to let the years most caustic release feel like one neverending ode to the worthlessness of humanity, our tiny place in existence, and the insignificance of said existence within the universe.

Such a nihilistic record needs the music to back it up, and of course this record absolutely has that. Full Of Hell and Andrew Nolan's partnership has been fruitful indeed, with a truly unholy effort coming to life from their calloused hands. 'Scraping The Divine' is a monument to the futility of humanity and our place in the wider universe, and stands as a sonic equivalent of any misanthropy that could be mustered up during the listen.

Words: Jake Longhurst

Photo: Jake Ballah