Pitva is a noisy-punk quartet hailing from Vienna, Austria.
Dominik, the singer, is from Czech republic though and most of (all?) the
lyrics are in Czech (Pitva means Autopsy).
Dominik seems to be the very active type, I won't even try
to mention all the projects he's been involved in, but he was/is part of several Black
Metal influenced bands like
Parasite Dreams
and
Smuteční Slavnost
(Funeral party) but is also in
Autor
(I reviewed their debut release
very briefly two years ago) and in
Urban Lurk, not a band but a tape label and show promoter based in
Vienna.
Standing behind the synth is Robert Pawliczek, a german
visual artist and musician who plays/played in a bunch of bands you probably have heard of like
Heavy Metal,
Bobby Would,
Schiach,
Privat
and
Agir
(I've probably missed a few), he also manages an
"artist run off space" called
Drive-In / Drive-Thru
and is involved in a label and distro called
Quality Music. Yes the man's been busy.
Raphael, the drummer, is not the idle type either and he's
spent years exploring various musical genres (from black metal to
dark-wave and post-punk). He is the drummer for Parasite Dreams but also
the man behind
Rosa Nebel
and plays in
Gates of Londra, Phantom Gold and
Peace Vaults. He is also the other half of Urban Lurk with Dominik.
The guitarist, aka Johnny Brise, seems to be obsessed with Metal, he played/plays in
Death Racer,
Hagzissa,
Kringa,
Forgotten Shrines
and other loud acts which are light-years away from my musical interests...
Anyway you got the point, these guys obviously didn't grab their first
guitar/drum kit/whatever last week end... so what do we have here on the postmortem table?
Pitva's demo
was released at the end of 2018 on the Prague-based label
Stoned To Death
and let me be straight, I'm not going to spend much time reviewing it. I discovered the demo
after I listened to their self-titled LP, which is a completely different story, and the demo black metal infused
vocals is a straight NO NO for me, I just can't stand it. So yes this first release
sounds closer to Parasite Dreams, and all that black metal stuff
Dominik is fond of, than what came next. Give it a try if you're
into that kind of stuff, I'm not.
So here is what deserves your full attention in my opinion, Pitva's recent (2022) self-titled LP released on the super cool Berlin-based label Static Age.
At first I didn't really understand the cover picture (wtf?), and then I
remembered what Pitva means (I told you at the very beginning of
this post!) and the whole thing instantly made sense! (thank you dear Google Translation).
Ok here were are, forget about the lousy Black Metal shit, this record is something else!
To be honest I had to listen to this LP A LOT to be able to really figure it out, yes it starts a bit like a noisy but bass-less punk band, the synth building up a dark and gloomy atmosphere made of distorted layers on which the guitar nails acute and haunting melodies. The vocals and the drums counterpoint all of this, keeping the burning anger right in your ugly face, Dominik screams and shouts while Raphael keeps it sharp and fast. The whole noisy punk vibe made me first thought of Bathouse (even if the bass is a big part of the swedes' noise and not of Pitva's) and the comparison's not completely irrelevant in my opinion but limiting Pitva to that is way too narrow.
Indeed, from the third track onwards, the record turns into something else, something that sounds colder, something that sounds a lot more "disillusioned", something that sounds very German in my opinion and recalls dirtier versions of Maske and, even more recently, of Die Verlierer.
But don't get me wrong, the noisy coldness "à la" Einstürzende Neubauten (the freezing cold Pytlak!) and the eastern anger from "behind the iron curtain" hardcore bands (Odpadki Civilizacije was mentioned somewhere, even if Pitva doesn't swim in the same kind of waters) are never very far. On Bestie the band even takes us halfway between Indus and cold-wave before diving back into a fast and cold synth punk.
But the main question in the end is always the same. Is it good? Do I like it? Yes and Yes I do but beware, don't be fooled by the "punkitude" of the first two tracks, the whole thing is a lot darker, gloomier and cold than what you might expect at first, yes, this album is a grower! The kind you're going to love coming to again and again.
Probably the best disturbing and noisy record to come out on Static Age since the amazing Walking Korpses LP!
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