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Paul Thomsen Kirk, the man behind the Akatombo moniker, thanks a number of people on the inside cover of Sometimes, Never. His wife, a member of Wire (Graham Lewis to be precise), and then - quite matter of factly – “the staff and surgeons @ University Hospital, Hiroshima for keeping me alive”. With this as a backdrop, it’s probably no surprise that this fourth Akatombo album has a darkness and desolation that is notable even by Kirk’s own (excellent) standards.
The album opens with the relentlessly dense Snark Und Troll, which is perhaps Akatombo’s finest piece yet. It’s certainly amongst the best things I heard throughout the whole of 2015. It’s hard to describe but hey, I’m going to have a go. Imagine a Land Of Rape & Honey-era Ministry playing in a field whilst a Boeing 707 flies over them. And only just over them as it happens. And Al Jourgenson and gang have OD’d on sedatives and are stuck playing the same riff for seven minutes or so. Admittedly, that might not sound like a great appetiser to some of you, in which case I can only apologise, because Snark Und Troll deserves to be heard by anyone who likes their sounds to be of a noisier, more abstract variety.
Obviously when you include your finest ever moment as the opening track, there is a danger that the rest of the album might be something of an anti-climax. It isn’t. Mission Creep has a similar relentlessness that almost makes your heart beat faster and the machine gun firing Click/Bate is another highlight. Stasiland, meanwhile, has a PiL-like quality with a deep, walking bassline whilst Scans & Needles, with its eerie sounds. almost demands to soundtrack some old creepy movie. If the percussive Convict A45522 is the sound of a rusty gate opening for a prisoner to escape, then Cold Call is a runaway train that shows no sign of stopping. The next stop is a new Akatombo album which is pencilled in for release this coming September and, at the risk of exhausting the rail metaphors, that will be one station that I will definitely be visiting.
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