artist: Skullflower title: Circulus Vitiosus Deus format: 3CD label: Turgid Animal Skullflower: http://www.monotremata.com/skull/ Turgid Animal: http://www.mutant-ape.co.uk/ review: J. Hamilton

Matthew Bower is really quite alarmingly prolific - one wonders how he finds the time to micromanage so many projects - Skullflower, Total, Hototogisu, Sunroof!, Mirag - and almost without fanfare drop something like this epic triple-cd set, including manufacturing the packaging by hand, all while maintaining a very high quality standard. The Bower/Stokoe incarnation of Skullflower has never shone brighter (darker?) than on these three discs. A track-by-track rundown would be quite pointless, as everything is made with the same template. No pauses, just a sharp cut from one dense wall of scree to another. But there's much more to this music than noise – there are strong melodic hooks everywhere (albeit buried in a sea of feedback and hiss), an amazing amount of textural variation given the incredibly simple instrumentation, even buried rhythms on occasion. The track titles seem to frame this disc in an almost black metal context - 'Abyssic Betrayals', 'Chasm of Funeral Stars', 'Inscribe With Black Flame on the Walls of the Abyss'... you get the idea. Theirs is a savage, feral, incendiary sound that suggests vast spaces beneath its claustrophobic surface. It's quite rare that a recording over three hours long feels too short, but this is one such recording, definitely the definitive statement by this incarnation of Skullflower, and a landmark recording in a career of landmark recordings.