Cassette Review // Hallway Five "Black Pits" (Public Eyesore Records)

 https://publiceyesore.bandcamp.com/album/black-pits

A slow intensity, this cassette begins with a screeching start.   Somewhere between those tense strings of Alfred Hitchcock and nails on a chalkboard, the percussion falls in behind like static rain.  An orchestra of sounds now.   There is a scraping in here now to where it can feel urgent, as if someone is trying to dig out after being buried alive.  But that message can also feel lost in all of the other chaos surrounding it.

Horns blare as the cymbals blush and you can begin to hear the various woondwinds amidst the metallic banging of the percussion- somewhat like a trash can, somewhat with more of a tin sound.   Expanding and contrasting, a little bit like an accordion drone now.   The sounds begin to fade out as it goes almost completely silent, but then that sound like a sax comes in as it also sounds like someone is dropping something they need to play their part (but then dropping that item becomes their part)

It's the slow build now, of all these individual sounds returning one by one until they can once again form that collective chaos we heard before.   Slow and steady, like JAWS.    There is a bit of sound like a certain percussion instrument- a wood block- being dropped or hit in a specific way and then the sax just comes in all wild.   Everything is back now, like a buzzing storm.   It drifts off into this slow and unassuming wave, which ultimately takes us to the end of the first side.

On the flip side the horns come in frantic, as if ghosts.   There is a glow about this which then takes us into this ambient slide which I feel was created by a guitar and distortion.   The sound can feel like it's skipping now, which also can be like dogs barking.   The sharp feedback now comes through like Morse Code.   This drops off into more distortion now, scrambles and it just feels like any sense of a rollercoaster ride we might have been on during the first side has now gone off the rails.

There is a cross between these horns blaring and the sharpness of the distortion cutting through that just makes this all so unpredictable.    This is the type of ride where if you try and fight it you'll want to get off, but if you truly embrace it then you'll find it to be fun.   Louder saxes squeak through now.   A bit of beeping and that hollow static as this feels like it's drifting off now.  A wild sax attack is slowly bringing it back.    There is a haunted air about this as it all comes together now.   The horns push through with more screeching.  

As wild of a ride as this has been, just when it feels like we're about to burn out the sound slowly come back up and now even that skramz style sax is back to the front.   Just as quickly as that builds all back up, it hits this certain point and then just ends.   For this to feel like something which slowly comes down or reaches a pinpoint ending where everyone plays one final note just doesn't seem fitting.  To maintain that mystery of where this sound might take you next right up until it no longer takes you is what makes this ride so grand.