Head Control System "Murder Nature" (The End)
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Thursday. Apr 27, 1:34 AM
An oddly epic album made up of seemingly incongruous parts.

A brief listen to Norweigan duo Head Control System’s debut album Murder Nature calls to mind the old adage, “I don’t know what I like, but I know it when I see it.”

Or, as the case may be, hear it. It’s weird, it’s quirky, and it’s out there. It’s not really a “heavy metal album,” as it’s being promoted, but it’s not really anything else, either. In its conception, it resembles vintage Faith No More (i.e. Angel Dust) with an experimental collection of vaguely heavy songs that are both addictive and strangely forgettable.

Remove the album from your player and you might at best recall two or three segments of chorus. But as the album plays, it draws you into an utterly enjoyable mind-fuck. It’s not quite stoner rock, but it could be. Not quite prog-rock, though it captures elements of it. Not quite metal, but it’s heavy.

The two contributors, Krisstoffer Garm Rigg and Daniel Cardoso, are well-established in Norway’s metal scene, and fear – perhaps with some foundation – that the album will be outwardly dismissed by fans who listen to it “in the closet.” It’s a difficult record to dislike, but it’s not “true metal,” and perhaps hardcore genre fans will find its experimentalism abhorrent.

At the end of the day, while it may be marketed as heavy metal and in places reference such obscure genres as grunge, Murder Nature feels like an industrial album, albeit with a far lighter touch than much of the genre. Leaving meaningless categorical classification aside, however, this seemingly discombobulated experiment comes together surprisingly well to form an oddly epic and uniquely listenable record.

Whatever it is, I like it.
www.headcontrolsystem.com
www.theendrecords.com

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Simon Neuwelt-Broder

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