Album: Chauffeurs
Artist: Nitkowski
Label: Function Records
Release date: 7th September 2009
I’m just going to throw this out there – Nitkowski are a complex band. If I was to tell you that they sounded like a darker Fugazi, somehow fused with the pioneering Italian jazz-metal of underground legends Ephel Duath, you’d probably start to understand what kind of a vibe their debut record creates. You’d be in the right ballpark, anyway. It’s dark, it’s intense, and it’s abrasive to say the very least.
Chauffeurs opens with the chaotic “The Taste and Stink Of Old Coins” – it blends complex, discordant riffwork with a drone style guitar attack – before rolling into the brilliant “Gukurahandi”, noisy, dirty guitars peppered with clean instrumental sections. It’s a dark, heavy sonic assault, tortured and feral, a testament to a genre of music that will always do its best to unnerve even those with the steeliest of demeanours.
“Two Above Zero” rocks like the atmospherics to a B-movie horror flick, while the bizarre “Scrubbers” builds up of incoherent sounds, to form a sparse, unsettling soundscape.
Standout track “Bite My Tongue And Do It For The Dogs” pulsates and sways – a distorted, discordant, ambient noisescape – it’s arguably the most structured song on Chauffeurs, and a real feat of visceral musicianship.
Nitkowski are a band that don’t slot into a scene; they pulsate and march through an audio assault that sounds akin to the notoriously complex Cave In sound, or anything by The Cancer Conspiracy. In fact, they’d probably be well at home on legendary noise label Hydrahead.
Chauffeurs is not an easy listen. It’s unsettling. In many places it’s absolutely bloody bizarre, but these moments of teeming confusion are resolved with moments of brilliance. Nitkowski are probably not best described as a band, but as purveyors of noise, and while it’s not designed for the casual listener, Chauffeurs is a compelling listen for fans of Ephel Duath, Fugazi, and early Cave In.
Our Arbitrary Numerical Verdict:
Free track | “Needs” (mp3)
Nitkowski - Needs
Articles our internet goblins think may interest you...
Tom Rumbold is a Cambridge-based acoustic musician and a long-time contributor to Stereokill. 
Recent Comments