The Atrocity Circus - Malpractice

 

Released: April 25

Brutal, yet subdued. Aggressive, but capable of restraint. The latest album from The Atrocity Circus ticks a lot of very important boxes for me and adds some I didn’t know about as well. This international three piece brings a certain level of horrifying texture and presents it with a perfect amount of pacing in each track to let the textures simmer perfectly and have maximum impact. The presence of the vocals on every track is just perfect, especially since they do a great job of adding to the sinister madness without overshadowing the other elements. Through a perfect balance, much of the more aggressive non-vocal elements make perfect passes for the the screaming/growling to live in its own space. 

Another element of the blending and arrangement here is the way in which the more subtle elements are expressed. On the title track “Malpractice,” the beginning comes across as so incredibly subtle with just a bit of smoldering noise and slightly amplified atmospherics. This lasts until approximately to first blast of noise as deep drum hit sets off a tail of grinding and wailing noise. As that wailing noise fades away, the low roar of the vocals joins in, with this alternating pattern continuing through the runtime of the track to the slow and writhing end. 

For me, this album is as great for its sonic aggression as well as the subtlety it is combined with. Not everything is at a ten. In fact, much of it sits at that low-to-mid intensity level, setting the stage perfectly for those intense moments. And those intense moments come in bursts that are so well spaced out that it comes across as pure cinematic tension which ratchets up and releases over and over with an upward trend towards the tense. It’s all wonderfully structured and presented, while also being terrifying and wretched.