Black metal re-cast as demented dream/death-pop. Layers of nebulous guitar haze drawing you deep down into the bottomless well of despondency. Robert Smith and Kevin Shields in corpse paint. Indeed, the music of the sadly defunct Brown Jenkins evokes a wide arrray of seemingly contradictory images with a musical approach that encompasses not only extreme metal at it’s most suffocating and depressive, but a veritable pandora’s box of disparate genres. British shoe gaze, old school gothic rock (I’m talking Cure, Bauhaus, Sisters, et al here, for the record) and vintage psychedelia are just a few of the sounds that band visionary Umesh has successfully harnessed into Death Obsession, the final statement from Brown Jenkins.
With drums buried way down in the mix and fairly sparse vocals, Umesh wisely lets his penchant for layers upon layers of distorted nightmare guitar-swarm be the focal point of Death Obsession. The sound has a vintage 1960’s fuzztone feel, but this is fuzz buried by time and dust, infused with a creeping Lovecraftian malevolence that is positively mesmerizing. The guitars alone make this the type of recording that begs to be listened to in a pitch black room with a good set of headphones, so that the myriad details of the mix can be properly allowed to ever-so-slowly unfurl and seep into your brain.
But Death Obsession is about far more than just guitar tone. Brown Jenkins even further separates itself from the hordes of cookie cutter black metal bands out there by writing actual songs. Tracks like opener “Breathless”, “Lords of Suicide” and “Blue Bird” could be pop rock gems funneled into your speakers directly from the sub-basements of hell, such are the catchy, hypnotic qualities Umesh infuses them with. In fact, if it weren’t for the rough-around-the-edges production and Umesh’s Cthulhu-with-bronchitis vocal delivery, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine these songs showing up on modern rock radio. Of course, with most of the tracks clocking in around the 9 minute mark, Brown Jenkins demands more of the listener than the average 3:30 radio nugget, but there are enough change-ups in dynamics and pacing to keep each song compelling.
Unfortunately, a posthumous album like Death Obsession is an extremely bittersweet listening experience. One can’t help but wonder how far Umesh could have taken Brown Jenkins with this utterly enthralling mix of sounds, what dark dimensional doorways could have been opened through such esoteric distortion rituals. Indeed, followers of everything from Circle of Ouroborus to Slowdive are advised to seek out the epitaph of Brown Jenkins.
[Note: Brown Jenkins mastermind Umesh is working on material for a new project called The Ash Eaters. According to him, the new band will be a continuation and progression of the sound being explored on Death Obsession. THKD will continue to provide coverage as this develops.]
THKD 