Potential poster boys for Norwegian underground metal’s mentally unhinged brigade, Vulture Industries take such a wildly idiosyncratic approach to making music that they seem to exist in perfect isolation from the rest of their native scene. The Tower is proudly, persistently and irresistibly deranged – an amalgam of numerous strands of oddball extremity, quirky leftfield art rock and abstruse theatricality.
Aside from an occasionally perceptible core of post-Arcturus prog experimentalism, it is this band’s dizzying array of ideas and influences that makes songs like The Hound and A Knife Between Us so intensely compelling, with nods to everyone from Nick Cave and Jim ‘Foetus’ Thirlwell through to assorted post-punk and gothic rock adding myriad unfamiliar shades to the heady brew of discordant riffs, analogue keys and singer Bjørnar Nilsen’s distinctive, tremulous baritone.
With stunning artwork thrown in, this is a brilliantly realised journey into madness.
