Crom-Tech

Let's go back, way back, to a time before Orthrelm was annhilating everyone's grey matter with their hyperactive prog shred, and before the entire out-metal underground finally took notice of Orthrelm/Octis/Ocrilim guitarist Mick Barr and his mindmelting, astoundingly obsessive compositions and speedshred. Before all of that, Barr was a member of a band called Crom-Tech, who we're not sure too many people were really into while they were around, but if you listen to this, their first "LP" from 1997, it's totally the embryonic stages of what would become Orthrelm.

Just like Orthrelm, Crom-Tech was a spartan duo of just drums and guitar, Mick Barr locking in his spiralling, angular, nearly incomprehensible guitar playing with drummer Malcolm McDuffie tossing out an endless stream of free jazz style drumming. Unlike Orthrelm, however, Mick was also the vocalist for Crom-Tech, and he shouts out a panicky sounding stream of made-up words and sounds that makes this stuff sound even more paranoid and intense. All of the tracks aren't much more than a minute long, each one an intricate laser beam freakouts of mashed atonal death metal shredding, yelpy DC punk, and epileptic free-jazz percussion n' skronk overload! The disc comes in a neat foldout sleeve with lots of weird artwork from Barr.