Vatican Shadow- Kneel Before Religious Icons

Label: Type Recordings
Format: LP
Released: March 2012

Dominic Fernow (aka Prurient) releases a collection of tracks under his Vatican Shadow moniker that were previously unavailable on LP. Taking as its springboard the sinister iconography of the war on terror, 'Kneel Before Religious Icons' focuses on texture and repetition- building a hypnotic song cycle awash with hazy synth patterns and clipped samples that sounds like it was recorded in a bunker somewhere in the Afghan desert.

The sound is stark- scratchy, clicking machine drums and swelling FX pads that reach for climax and never quite attain it. There are some interestingly unconventional transitions in texture and pacing, first track 'Chopper crash marines' names released' has you locked in a suffocating, fuzzed out bubble before cutting the low end and seguing sharply into the shell shocked almost-techno of 'Harbingers of things to come'. 'Worshipers at the same mosque', quite possibly the album's highlight boots up with no introduction, snapping into a woozy synth led rhythm.

It's an album of gorgeous rattling darkness, that engages viscerally with its subject matter- cloaked in the black smoke of burning oil wells and the language of official press reports and televangelism it soundtracks effectively the defining conflict of this era.