Customer Reviews

How to Destroy Angels

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Quite frankly, I dont know whether to encourage you to rush out and buy this CD or to stay the hell away from it. I listened to this CD, along with some other Coil, one late college night, alone and in the dark, and it was easily the most horrifying listening experience of my life. The sounds these guys have created are quite maddening. In fact, if I were a religious man (which I'm not), I'd be willing to believe that How To Destroy Angels was created for doing just that. The sounds on this CD are not of this world; you'll be tempted to believe you are actually listening to a recording of Hell. Just make sure to have something suitably un-scary on hand after you get done listening so as not to slip into insanity forever =) I used Abbey Road.

- Steve

This album contains new interpretations of the 1984 Coil Ep, How to Destroy Angels: ritual music for the accumulation of male sexual energy. This is hardly my favorite Coil album. That being said, it's still Coil and it's still impressive, to say the least.

"The Sleeper" is a short piece driven by a sound which to me resembles the engine of a car that's stuck in a ditch or something, excelerating and decelerating over a 4 sec period. This also apears in various places and various forms thru out the album. Very werid stuff.

"Remotely" is a 17 min track containing some creaking noises (a la "Her Friends the Wolves..."), scattered percussion and a soft vocal-like synth toward the end.

"The Sleeper II" contains some sounds which are more of less absent from track 1, including some really haunting synth, which I love.

Humans atempting to recreate the sound of "Tectonic Plates" colliding and grinding up against one another with instruments. By far the most choatic track.

"Dismal Orb" is esentially a shorter version of "Remotely" with less creaking and more synth.

"How to Destroy Angels II" is 17 mins of fluctuating tones and percussion, possibaly taken directly from the original Ep.

Taken from the original release "Absolute Elsewhere" is 1 sec of silence. According to Coil it exists in full, somewhere in some form. Much as "Absolute Elsewhere" is unplayable, for me Coil albums are essentially unratable. But this is my atempt. Where "A Thousand Lights in a Darkened Room" and "Stolen and Contaminated Songs" are like a 4.5 or a 5 and all non-Coil material is 0, "How to Destroy Angels" is a 2.5 or a 3.

You might think that Coil were holding back on this album even though it's only a minor release. That maybe, but I believe the absence of extravagant Synth is what gives this album such a unique, organic quality. It's totally alien and empty (but in a good way).

If you like experimental noise, or you are a long time fan buy this album. Not for beginners.

Unlike claimed in the editorial review, this is NOT a re-release of the one-sided 12" EP released on L.A.Y.L.A.H. records in 1984. It is a reworked and expanded edition that brings the aforementioned piece of art to new heights. Consisting of 7 tracks, it is a very dark sound collage that paved the way for the ambient droning Coil later did with "Time Machines" and the like, but is far more chaotic than their later works.

The first 5 tracks are new material, although some fragments are easily recognizable as being reworked snippets of older releases. Still, the result is both new music (?) and a very different atmosphere.

You must be most familiar with the original release to notice its differences to the reworked version "How To Destroy Angels 2", but if you listen closely, and this is a must for this album in general, as it is not considered to be "background music", you'll find the additions and variations, which are very fitting and, in a manner of speaking, quite potent. The last track, "Absolute Elsewhere", is taken from the flip side of the aforementioned 1-sided LP - i.e. the backside of HTDA's vinyl edition was unplayable (empty), whilst the CD "version" of it is 1 second of silence. (If you think Coil were pulling your leg here, you have not understood the alchemy of their music.)

All in all, this is a very mental record - with every possible linguistic interpretation of this word included.

This is one of the best albums I own--its bubbling tones and manipulated industrial crashes wield a power that trembles on the brink between the "conscious" and "subconscious".

The first time I listened to the album, I was tired and fell asleep to the burbling, intoxicating sounds of the first track, "Sleeper"--only to awake with mind-melting, too-real nightmares during the ritual crashing of "Tectonic Plates". However I didn't turn it off; the hypnotic repetitions of the rest of the album bewitched me and I retreated from my terror to treasure the album and its power and psychological depth.

This is very unlike much of Coil's earlier work, possibly the reason that an earlier reviewer said this was "their worst album" -- obviously untrue. It is more like Black Light District (for example), which I would also heartily recommend (though I have no wacky stories about sleeping and waking during that album). Also, give Lustmord's "Heresy" a listen, if you can find it (read my review here at Amazon by clicking on my name above).

Enough listening to me -- but buy this album if it even vaguely intrigues you, and you won't regret it.

This is perhaps on of the finest exanmples of ritual ambience that has ever been created. It has an earthy texture, but an effect that is anything but. These alien sounds are based on "mars and solar currents and their corresponding numbers 5 and 17" Everything from the length of time it took to record this album to artwork itself which was done by the late Derek Jarman. I can gaurantee not all people put this much thought into their music, and that is why few bands can match the brilliance that Coil offers. This is not for the beginner, someone not into ritual music or ambience probably won't get the full effect of this recording. I won't mention standout tracks because this albums really deserves to be played in its entirity, preferably alone before bed. Pleasant dreams.

This was the first Coil album I got, and even though a lot of fans didn't like this one as much as L.S.D. or any other major Coil releases, they can't be compared. This one is quite amazing, much better even then the original H.T.D.A. This one compares better to Worship the Glitch, although this one is much more cohesive.

Just a suggestion...I am not too sure if there are subliminal intentions with this album, or if it was intended for an "alternate state of mind"...but I was listening to "Remotely" on a drive home recently, and I got this strange desire to run over small animals. Luckily, I was able to restrain myself.

Coil is a band that constantly updates, changes or revamps its sound to fit the members' current fancy. It is also a band destined to remain virtually unknown, although it will always retain its fanatic base of listeners. Supposedly, the band will put out their next LP on Trent Reznor's Nothing label. I give this album five stars on a completely personal level, meaning that it definitely fit my mood when I bought it. This album is for those into harsh ambient noise or if you enjoy scaring yourself as you drift to sleep. If you like melodies, beats, or friendly atomospheric electronic music, check out Future Sound of London's "LIFEFORMS."

I find "Remotely" and "How to Destroy Angels II" to both be incredibly psychedelic. It is as if they found a way to record the sound of your brain on heavy psychedelics and deep, dark tantra. If you are afraid of activating your lower 3 chakras, stay away. These 2 tracks are like the swelling of the serpent, the coil (pun) of kundalini rising as a burning serpent, the sleeping dragon's thunderous purr, the uncoiling of the restless male sexual energy. Masterful! These 2 tracks are my favorite works by Coil but they are more like doses of hallucinogens than songs.

This was the first Coil album I got, and even though a lot of fans didn't like this one as much as L.S.D. or any other major Coil releases, they can't be compared. This one is quite amazing, much better even then the original H.T.D.A. This one compares better to Worship the Glitch, although this one is much more cohesive.