Artist: Chang Ffos
Label: Moonlee Records
Release: 2006
Length: 44:46
Rating: 4/5
Zagreb has never been a city that was famous as a hatchery for musically interesting stuff. With Chang Ffos, though, that’s far from the case. This is a band that’s been around for well over ten years. A band that miraculously hung on through all those “barren” years without an album to its name. But once you spin their studio debut “Trust This Arcane Device” (2006), the word “barren” drops away in an instant.
With just their first record, Chang Ffos already belong to the elite of bands from our southern neighbor, bands with a musical charm you can spot a mile away, plus huge expressive power and charisma. Given that heavier sounds made south of the Kolpa have never counted for much on the world stage, that matters all the more in the case of these chaos/stoner/noise hardcore guys. Stoner? Did I just say stoner? Well, Chang Ffos are surely not alone in that back home, there are, for example, two far more stoner-ish bands, StoneBride and Good Day To Die, who have their own charms too.
Going by the labels, it’s immediately clear we’re dealing with a modern form of music that works by building intense atmosphere. Let’s rather not use the word metal, because you won’t find it in Chang Ffos even as much as there’s black under a fingernail. Still, Chang Ffos are a painful noise, an unbearable noise. Chang Ffos are sonic craftsmen who’ll have no trouble sinking a drill bit into your head and boring a gargantuan hole right into the middle of your “silly forehead”.
“Trust This Arcane Device” follows an unrelenting rage, delivered through a completely raw, live, authentically avalanche-like sound across the entire album. With its strong chemistry and its sonic stamp, the album feels downright like a live show. The character of the songs, the album and ultimately the band itself is ominous, ruinous, extremely neurotically schizophrenic, yet at the same time always possessively grabby, which lifts the veil on a constant allure and a desire to explore the world of Chang Ffos doom.
The opener Thy Doom Ape already announces that “Trust This Arcane Device” is a hugely varied and lively album in terms of motifs, bursting with exuberant dynamics and a hunger to prove itself through the band’s one-of-a-kind musical sermon. The massive wall of sound is often achieved not just by riff-shredding, but also by plain creaky string-bending or deliberately uncontrolled distortion that works, as already said, absolutely deafening. Better for the guitar to lose control, to “screw up”, than to dutifully follow the tonality of the melodies.This blend of so many genre spheres, which directly proves that Chang Ffos are given over to exploring themselves and don’t want to put any expressive limits on that, even calls to mind the greats like Mastodon in terms of energy. Of course with a lot less complexity and polished studio control. Roughly speaking, if we’re looking for parallels, you can find some expressive similarity between Chang Ffos and bands like Neurosis and Converge. They just let the riffs run.
In Iron Icon (the second half of the track) there’s a surprising leap into the stoner waters of the likes of Kyuss, but it doesn’t last long, as the band quickly switches to a chaotic, adventurous hardcore stance of inflexibly roaring rolling thunder. This combination repeats quite a few times across the album, and stands out most starkly at the moment of the album’s worst butchering orgy, the track Jethro. Then there are constant moments of bigger or smaller detours from the listed mix of genre forms, like the drawn-out, very Kyuss-like Bowels Of The Beast Of The Matrarchate.
The fusion would by no means be so successful without the excellent drummer Nikola B., who’s in many ways the main “culprit” for that Mastodon quip in one of the paragraphs above. The vocals, in their screaming, are consistently real and extremely compatible, an important building block and co-creator of the band’s destructive sound.
Considering this is a studio debut, I’d argue the band can truly be proud of it. The years of drought paid off in the polishing of the songs’ final shape, which together make up an extremely varied and dynamic album, loaded with a musty, roaring, haughty and hellishly stinging atmosphere of unbearable pain, anger and agony. This is an album that puts an experiment of stoner rock, intelligently merged with elements of hardcore, in a special spot on the musical map. With this debut, Chang Ffos have secured themselves an exceptional springboard for an assault on the world abroad. For the further development of this nonconformist, witty, brave, exploratory band, a band with a clearly crafted vision, a breakthrough into foreign markets is a must. Western Europe and the USA.. Chang Ffos are a rough diamond that’s well worth polishing.
Lineup
Ivan E. – vocals
Ashas Adzhun – guitar
Alen Nueda – bass
Nikola B. – drums
Production
Steve Austin
Tracklist
1. Thy Doom Ape
2. Zen Rock Majik
3. Iron Icon
4. The Throne of Sasquatch Ascending
5. And All Things, Either Good Or Ungood
6. Jethro
7. Bowels Of The Beast Of The Matriarchate
8. Le Charmuer De Serpents
9. Ondjage
