Dragged Into Sunlight / Gnaw Their Tongues – “N.V.” [EP] [Album Review]

N.V., the latest release from Dragged Into Sunlight, in collaboration with Gnawing Their Tongues, is one of the most putrid releases of this year. They write horrifying music that tries to channel Time To Burn and Altar of Plagues. You could do worse for a release. But after listening to this album a number of times, I realized the largest mistake this release makes is the very thing that is supposed to define it.

I understand that the album was supposed to be a concept, influenced by Dutch artist Gnaw Their Tongues, who’s stated the idea behind his choices of samples are influenced by the horror of real and macabre news stories. This makes sense, and in fact some of the best metal records in the past have used samples to great effect. Just take Dystopia’s Human = Garbage for instance. But the result in this release feels decidedly tacked on. There’s no cohesion between the music and the numerous samples playing throughout.

As for the concept itself, of serial killers ruthlessly and coldly murdering and torturing women, it feels cheap. We live in a world that already treats women like shit. It’s disappointing to see this group attempting to utilize horror from news stories in the same way that American news networks do to create art. One can argue that that’s cold, hard reality, that that’s the point of the album, that it is indeed art. I hear those arguments. My problem is that amplifying that message instead of creating different routes of catharsis for the listener feels like it’s feeding into the problem, not abetting it. And furthermore, I feel like an extreme metal band can do better than feeding into the same model that something like Fox News employs.

Track Listing:

01. Visceral Repulsion
02. Absolver
03. Strangled With The Chord
04. Omniscienza
05. Alchemy In The Subyear

Run Time: 32:21
Release Date: November 13, 2015

Check out the track “Absolver” here.