Corrections House - 'Know How to Carry a Whip' (Album Review)

By: Mike Wilcox

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 23/10/2015

Label: Neurot Recordings

From ‘The Hall of Cost’ to the close of the album the listener is privy to something unique, something special….something that is angry and upset.  With talents from an array of accomplished bands bleeding a sludgy-industrial muck into your brain, Corrections House reminds you that you aren’t the only one who hates your job, your city, your society...all of us do…

Know How to Carry a Whip CD//DD//LP track listing:

1. Crossing My One Good Finger
2. Superglued Tooth
3. White Man’s Gonna Lose
4. Hopeless Moronic
5. Visions Divide

6. The Hall Of Costs
7. When Push Comess to Shank
8. I Was Never Good At Meth
9. Burn The Witness

The Review:

I want to preface this review by stating that in addition for my appreciation of darker metal I also firmly appreciate industrial music.  It’s not uncommon to find Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, and others on my queue.  That being said when I read about Corrections House releasing a new album, ‘Know How to Carry a Whip’, reflecting on their first release, ‘Last City Zero’, I became excited.  Corrections House is a very interesting creature, seemingly operating as a whole only functioning via contributions from its independent parts: Mike IX Williams from Eyehategod spews his realities of a broken nation over Scott Kelly (Neurosis) on guitar, Sanford Parker of Buried at Sea on drums and processing, and Bruce Lamont of Yakuza adding haunting atmospheres on saxophone. 

Unlike Corrections House’s first release, ‘Last City Zero’, this album carries with it a much more collected and organized feeling as opposed to it’s former which, in my opinion seemed like a broken string of poems.  Great tracks stand alone, but not the same degree of coherence as ‘Know How to Carry a Whip’.  By the end of ‘White Man’s Gonna Lose’ the listener has been forcefully thrust through a truly dark blend of Sludge/Doom and Industrial.  Whatever these dudes put into their coffee they should keep drinking it, because as you are whipped into ‘Visions Divide’ you swear that someone switched the track for ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’, with that unmistakable, raw, and baron Scott Kelly western voice.  Sax kicks in from Bruce Lamont and the mental picture is enhanced.

While there are similarities that I can draw to Corrections House’s ‘Last City Zero’, I don’t feel the need to because I honestly don’t think that was the intention of the album.  From ‘The Hall of Costs’ to the close of the album the listener is privy to something unique, something special….something that is angry and upset.  With talents from an array of accomplished bands bleeding a sludgy-industrial muck into your brain, Corrections House reminds you that you aren’t the only one who hates your job, your city, your society...all of us do…  

‘Know How to Carry a Whip’ is available here

Band info: facebook | bandcamp

Corrections House - Last City Zero (Album Review)

Album Type : Full Length

Date Released : 29/10/2013

Label : Neurot Recordings

Last City Zero, album tracklisting :

1). Serve or Survive 08:14

2). Bullets and Graves 02:40

3). Party Leg and Three Fingers 07:07

4). Run Through The Night 04:03

5). Dirt Poor and The Mentally Ill 06:06

6). Hallow of the Steam 04:03

7). Last City Zero 05:06

8). Drapes Hung By Jesus 09:41

The Band :

Mike IX Williams
Scott Kelly
Bruce Lamont
Sanford Parker

Review :

I think that it's fairly safe to assume that you know all the players involved here. That isn't at all lazy journalism (well, it might be), just my way of not insulting the collective intelligence of you fine people. If you're here and you're reading this, or even if you're a regular visitor to this den of iniquity that masquerades as a blog, then you'll no doubt know who Corrections House are. But what you won't be receiving when you listen to 'Last City Zero' if you haven't heard any of their output to date is what you think you're going to hear.

No sir. Not at all.

I was lucky enough to hear the 'Hoax The System' release, and I read Markwell's review last year. What that EP managed to do was completely blow my expectations of what the band would sound like clean out of the water. And this debut full length is even further removed from what I expected initially. They could have easily traded on all of our expectations and just recorded the heaviest fucking thing ever, but I now believe that even in its infancy that was probably never the game plan for the band.

What you do get is mental. It's some sort of crazy Mike IX beat poetry, laced with Kelly's ability to exude sheer mood and atmosphere, dumped into a blender with some early Ministry electronics and industrialism. I hear no EHG, but I do feel its spirit moving through the room. I've given up trying to pigeonhole Neurosis, but I can detect some of their primal energy. This is an altogether new beast, and with every new listen it will peel itself like some kind of onion doing a striptease. Yeah, you read that correctly.

The whole thing is just one wild ride. 'Bullets And Graves' is some sort of punk metal industrial mongrel, which wouldn't be out of place on a 74th Crow sequel soundtrack. This album is probably even darker than you thought it was going to be and it doesn't have to be mind numbingly heavy to achieve this, as it manages to prove. My favourite cut is the acoustic guitar driven tones of the Springsteen-ish titled 'Run Through the Night'. Is that sax in the background? Its brass of some kind, and it absolutely works. It conjures images of lovers escaping the humdrum across a desert in the American southwest. Absolutely beautiful, and Kelly sounds like he's paying homage to Nick Cave. And then it envelopes itself in some sort of white-noise drenched, subdued black metal riffing. Does that sound immense? You bet your ass it does.

'Dirt Poor And Mentally Ill' shows the electronic aspect on top form, and Mike Williams at the top of his game. The main beat sounds huge, and the primary riff isn't overwhelming at all. Just the right amount of fuzz and mystery involved. All the evidence suggests that this was meant to be recorded as an album and not just a collection of songs. Great minds came together and concocted this.

Honestly, 'Last City Zero' is amazing. If ever a lesson existed to not judge something with any kind of pre-conceived notions, then this is it. This album, as I stated earlier, will not be what you expect it to be. From personal experience, it far exceeds any expectations.

Words by : Matt Fitton

You can buy it here

For more information :

https://www.facebook.com/CorrectionsHouse
http://www.neurotrecordings.com
https://www.facebook.com/neurotrecordings