More blood-freezing nightmare ambience from Malignant Records, who is hands down the premier label for this sort of stuff. Rasalhague is a brand new acquisition for the label, a one-man industrial ambient outfit from Indiana who specializes in chilling dark drift that carries a similar icy feel as Michael Hoenig's (Agitation Free/Tangerine Dream) score for the 1988 remake of The Blob. Rage is an soundtrack to death-scenes and the spectral shadows of violent crimes; it's sort of a concept album influenced by an actual case of severe child torture and neglect, and these themes carry over into the skin-crawl blackness that seeps from each of these tracks. Distorted drones and pounding percussive throb seethe below sweeping synthetic strings and pulses of black synth that ascend into the stratosphere, and there's the usual Lustmord influence heard here in the strange demonic murmurs, croaks, and other malevolent sonic events that flit and flutter around the edges and in the cracks between the sprawling black synth drones and fields of extended orchestral thrum. What sets this apart for me is Rasalhague's use of black-hole James Horner-esque synthesizers that blast through the darkness, and which give the album a truly monstrous feel. The drones are punctured with swells of horrific metallic noise and creaking, rusted iron that inject a heavy dose of fear and paranoia into Rasalhague's music, amid stretches of massive tectonic grinding and clouds of dense metallic whirr. Descending through the album, we're treated to heavily processed voices, swirling subterranean winds, monstrous growls and swells of synthetic brass, and throughout one hears

the pained cries of a child echoing endlessly through infinite black corridors. There are surging low end minor key melodies that sound like they are being played on a pitch-shifted oboe and distant metallic clanks and echoes, building towards the grinding factory dread and rhythmic throb of "Danielle's Dilemma" before venturing out into more kosimiche territory towards the end. Stunningly depraved stuff that, to my ears, is closer to dungeon-horror sound design than your usual isolationist platter. It's highly recommended to fans of the blackest ambient on the Cold Meat label, Yen Pox, Hyios, Raison D'etre, Atrium Carceri, and the like. The disc comes in a gorgeous full-color six-panel Dvd size digipack, similar to those used for Navicon Torture Technology and Theologian releases.